Lordswood Girls' School and The Sixth Form Centre is a secondary school and

sixth form In the education systems of England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepare for A-l ...

on Knightlow Road in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

between

Harborne Harborne is an area of south-west Birmingham, England. It is one of the most affluent areas of the Midlands, southwest from Birmingham city centre. It is a Birmingham City Council ward in the formal district and in the parliamentary constitu ...

and Bearwood.

History

It was established in 1958 as a grammar technical school (as was the neighbouring boys' school from 1962, although it opened in 1957), whereby entrance was governed by doing well in an entrance exam (

11-plus The eleven-plus (11+) is a standardized examination administered to some students in England and Northern Ireland in their last year of primary education, which governs admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools which use academi ...

). In 1973 it became a comprehensive school. In September 2005 it became a specialist

Arts College An Arts College, in the United Kingdom, is a type of specialist school that specialises in the subject fields of the performing, visual, digital and/or media arts. They were announced in 1996 and introduced alongside Sports Colleges to England i ...

. The school converted to academy status in April 2011. On 1 June 2012, Lordswood had their grand opening of their new science block. This was officially opened by

Gisela Stuart Gisela Stuart, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (''née'' Gschaider; born 26 November 1955) is a British-German politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Edgbaston from 1997 to 2017. A former member of the Lab ...

MP. In January 2013, Lordswood Boys' School also converted to academy status and joined Lordswood Girls' School as part of Lordswood Academies Trust. In July 2017 Lordswood Boys' School left Lordswood Academies Trust after an extended period in

Special Measures Special measures is a status applied by regulators of public services in Britain to providers who fall short of acceptable standards. In education (England and Wales) Ofsted, the schools inspection agency for England and some British Overseas Ter ...

after being rated Inadequate in multiple Ofsted inspections and undergoing a severe drop in the number of students enrolled. The newly formed Central Academies Trust took over running of the boys school from September 2017 In March 2022 an Ofsted inspection rated Lordswood Girls’ School as ‘Requires Improvement’ focusing on inadequate leadership, curriculum planning and poor tracking of student progress. Following this, in July 2022, National Education Union members at the school balloted in favour of strike action in opposition to forced transfer of their employment to King Edward VI Academy Trust as well as in opposition to ongoing ‘unacceptable management practices’.

Admissions

It is a female-only school for ages 11–18, with a mixed 6th form. It is situated close to the

A4040 List of A roads in zone 4 in Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European isla ...

Lordswood Road
, just south of the A456 (

Hagley Hagley is a large village and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. It is on the boundary of the West Midlands and Worcestershire counties between the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and Kidderminster. Its estimated population was 7,162 in 2 ...

Road) junction. Next door, to the north, is the Lordswood Boys' School. The school has a mixed sixth form provision along with Lordswood Boys' School. The sixth form provision as a whole forms part of '' Oaks Sixth Form College'', a consortium of six secondary schools in South-West Birmingham.

Academic performance

The school consistently gets good results at GCSE level. At A level, the results are above the England average. Lordswood Girls’ School was rated Requires Improvement (3) at its latest Ofsted inspection (March 2022). This was the first full Ofsted report since converting to an academy in 2011. Previous to academisation the school had been rated Outstanding. The 2019 Progress 8 score for the school was +0.74 with a rating of Well Above Average.

Notable former pupils

Preet Gill Preet Kaur Gill (Punjabi: ਪ੍ਰੀਤ ਕੌਰ ਗਿੱਲ, born 21 November 1972) is a British politician serving as Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development since 2020. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, she h ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for

Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham Edgbaston is a constituency, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Preet Gill, a Labour and Co-operative MP. The most high-profile MP for the constituency was former Prime Minister Neville Chamber ...

Debbie Isitt Debbie Isitt (born 7 February 1966) is an English comic writer, film director, composer and performer. Early life and education Isitt was born in Birmingham. She went to Our Lady of Fatima Primary School and Lordswood Girls Secondary School and ...

, writer, film director and performer.

References

External links

EduBase

Lordswood Girls' School

News items

Good results in 2004

Headteacher criticises OFSTED in 2000
{{authority control Girls' schools in the West Midlands (county) Educational institutions established in 1958 1958 establishments in England Secondary schools in Birmingham, West Midlands Academies in Birmingham, West Midlands Harborne