In September 2013 the school opened a new purpose-built Sixth Form block with specialist classrooms, tutor meeting rooms and computer suites, and a new Science Centre was opened in 2016 by Lord Robert Winston. As a former specialist school in sport the Knights Templar School also has a million-pound sports centre with fitness suite and a floodlit all-weather sports pitch. In July 2017, the school press team writing "KTS NewsKnight" attended the prestigious national journalism competition, Shine School Media Awards and won several prizes. The school Houses are Crellin, Hancock, Hine, Pembroke, Bennett, Knights and Templar, named after former Headmasters of the school (Hancock and Crellin); local educationists (George N. Bennett, who taught at the Pond Lane (Council) School in Baldock for over 40 years) and Alderman Neville Hine who for many years was Chairman of Managers of Baldock County Council School and worked for the building of the Knights Templar School; 'Strongbow', the Earl of Pembroke (the school is built on land owned by the Earl in the medieval period), and the Knights Templar who built the parish church St. Mary the Virgin c.1125. The school has a strong musical tradition, with about a third of all pupils taking extra tuition in an instrument or voice. The Big Band and Senior Chamber Choir perform locally and the school organises a music tour bi-annually, geared mainly towards these two groups (though anyone is welcome). Recent tour locations include Budapest in Hungary during July 2006 and Liguria in Italy in July 2008. A former pupil, Frances Balmer, won the 2004 BBC Proms Young Composers' Competition. Recent Sixth Former and Royal College of Music Junior Department student Ben Goldscheider played the french horn with the National Youth Orchestra and in 2013 was the joint winner of the Toddington Music Society Young Musician of the Year Competition. In 2014 he won The Marlowe Young Musician Of The Year Competition, and in May 2016 he won the Brass Final in the BBC Young Musician competition, going on to the Semi Finals and then the Finals. From October 2016 he began four years music study at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin and performs internationally. The Knights Templar School received coverage in the national media  in 2002 over the 'fixing' of 'A' level grades by examination boards. The school was the first in the country to appeal the grades awarded to its students in GCE Psychology. From 2005 to 2013 it was a specialist school for Sport and the Performing Arts.