The history of the 'Szerb Antal' Secondary Grammar School in Cinkota goes back to 120 years. Cinkota is the name of part of the 16th district in Budapest. In the 1860s, in the times of national hopes of our country, women of nobility and the upper middle-class started unionizing and in 1861 they set up the Hungarian National Circle of Housewives. The main goal of this organisation was to establish an institution for practical and mental education of poorer children, especially girls of the middle-class. The organisation, led by the widow of Count Lajos Batthyány, opened its first orphanage and elementary school in the 7th district in Budapest in 1866.
The written documents belonging to our school date back to 1887. Around the turn of the century the school was operating as a civil school. The curent two-storey, almost 100 meters long, grand building was built between 1904 and 1906. Countess Ilona Batthyány surrendered part of the park belonging to her own mansion for the sake of the cause. In 1919 the government bought the building and removed the Hungarian Royal State Teacher's Training College from Bratislava here. It served as Teacher's Training College together with the Parctice Elementary School. The school was still patronized by Ilona Batthyány until her death in 1929.
The mansion was burnt down in 1944 during World War II, later the entire building was pulled down and today at its place the school's sportsground can be found. Until 1955 it was the centre of the Hungarian teacher's training when the first secondary grammar school class was opened and from then it gradually turned into a secondary grammar school. The last teachers graduated here in 1959 and at the same year there was the first final exam of secondary education held. In 1969 the number of grammar scgool classes was 17. There were several faculties: Russian-English, German-French, Chemistry-Biology, and Chemistry-Physics. At that time there were compulsory practice days also, so the students had to take part in ornamental planting, breeding of small animals, ceramics, and grinding.
Today the school has A, B, C, and D classes. The A-B classes are six-grade classes, so from the age of 12 to 18, the C-D classes are four-grade with students from the age of 14 to 18. The school has 20 classes with about 660 students. The number of teachers is 55. In 1969 the school was named after Antal Szerb, a famous Hungarian writer, and has had the same name since then.