Redcar School of Gymnastics was founded in 1966, as an independent gymnastics centre of excellence by a small group including the current life president, Mr Jack Grey. In it's early days, the club had a variety of homes including church halls, terraced houses and schools.  The school moved to its current premises in 1984. Following a devastating arson attack in late 1988, which almost completely destroyed the building and all equipment, the school was rebuilt and reopened in 1990.

Over the years, the school has continued offering a service to the young people of the Redcar and Marske areas, and has remained an independent organisation operated and supported by a succession of dedicated volunteers. Many of the current coaches and volunteers are ex gymnasts from the club, or else have children who attend or used to attend the school. The school is operated by an elected executive of 12 members and has 13 coaches, who are supported by a significant group of volunteers. We achieve GymMark, a national charter mark, in 2005 and have just been awarded Northern Gym Club of the Year followed by Northern General Gym Club of the Year.

Our most famous gymnast was Lisa Grayson, who amongst her many other successes made the British Olympic squad for the Seoul Olympics in 1988. There is more about Lisa on a separate article.  In November 2001, Mr Grey won the Community Sport category of the Evening Gazette Community Champions awards.  Mr Grey has now retired as an active coach, but remains as the club life president.

The school currently has gymnasts from the age of 5 up to around 16. There are around 160 gymnasts, both boys and girls, ranging from complete novices up to pre-elite standard. Younger and beginner gymnasts work through the BGA badge system. For more advanced gymnasts, we compete in two and four piece artistic events locally, regionally and nationally, including age group and grades events. The school holds its own competition in December of every year, open to every club gymnast. At this event, the Denis Hamer trophy (named after the one of the school’s founders) is awarded to the outstanding gymnast of the year.

Over the years, the school has participated in a variety of exchange programmes, both within Britain and overseas. There is a current link with the Don Clark gymnastics club in Maryland, USA, a group from our club visited America last year. A group from Hinckley visited Redcar for a friendly competition in February 2004, with a return event in Hinckley in October 2004. We also have links with a gymnastics club from Kendal in Cumbria and with South Durham Gymnastics Club. The school has also developed links with a number of local primary schools and with Rye Hills Specialist Sports College.

In our most recent development, we have introduced a tumbling group alongside our original artistic gymnastics. As well as the gymnastics activities, the school has an active social and fundraising programme. The school is completely self-supporting, and actively seeks funding from a variety of sources. In recent years, we have received funding from the West Redcar and Loftus SRB, Awards For All community funding, Ladbrokes, Redcar Rotary Club, and Huntsman Petrochemicals amongst others.