Reading Girls' School is a single-sex
partially selective (bilateral) school in
Reading, Berkshire
Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
History
RGS traces its history to Reading Girls' British School, established in 1818 at Southampton Street. Neither is to be confused with
Reading Abbey Girls' School
Reading Abbey Girls' School, also known as Reading Ladies’ Boarding School, was an educational establishment in Reading, Berkshire open from at least 1755 until 1794. Many of its pupils went on to make a mark on English culture and society, part ...
, attended by
Jane Austen. In 1907 it transferred to the new purpose-built George Palmer School in Basingstoke Road. In 1960 George Palmer Girls' School moved to RGS' current campus at Northumberland Avenue and was named Southlands Secondary School for Girls. The boys' section had moved to the purpose-built Ashmead School in 1952. That school was later renamed Thamesbridge College before becoming the present-day
John Madejski Academy. Southlands School was renamed Reading Girls' School in 1993 with the reimplementation of its selective stream.
Since November 2015 RGS is undergoing a rebuild, a new campus on the same site is due to be completed by August 2016.
In February 2016 RGS was placed into
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 an
Ofsted inspection rated the school as 'inadequate'. The inspection highlighted problems with leadership, management and quality of teaching at the school.
Previously a
foundation school administered by
Reading Borough Council
Reading Borough Council is the local authority for the Borough of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. Berkshire is purely a ceremonia ...
, in September 2017 Reading Girls' School converted to
academy status and is now sponsored by the Baylis Court Trust.
Academics
Reading Girls' school is partnered with
Kendrick School
Kendrick School is a selective girls' grammar school situated in the centre of Reading, Berkshire, UK. In February 2011, Kendrick became an Academy.
History
The school is named after John Kendrick, a Reading cloth merchant who died in 1624. ...
, a grammar school in Reading. Although Reading Girls' School is not categorised as a grammar school, it does have verbal and non-verbal reasoning entrance tests for the selective stream section of the school.
The school offers
GCSEs
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...
and
BTECs as programmes of study for pupils.
References
External links
Reading Girls' School official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reading Girls
Secondary schools in Reading, Berkshire
Girls' schools in Berkshire
Educational institutions established in 1818
1818 establishments in England
Bilateral schools in England
Academies in Reading, Berkshire