Southend High School for Girls is a grammar school with academy status situated on

Southchurch Southchurch is an inner city area of the city of Southend-on-Sea, in the City of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. England. In 1911 the parish had a population of 3954. History In 824 AD, a Saxon thegn, Leofstan pr ...

Boulevard in the east of

Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

, Essex, England. It caters for students from the age of 11 through to 18 years old.

Academics

As of 2022, the school's most recent Ofsted inspection was in 2011, when it was judged Outstanding. The school has a specialism in languages. All Key Stage 3 students study French and German or French and Spanish (replacing Latin in 2002, which is now available as an additional subject studied off-timetable). The school also offers other additional languages to the students, for example Chinese, Russian or Polish, but these come at a personal expense to the student themselves. The school achieves excellent results at

A level The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational au ...

and other examinations, consistently above national averages, in part because of the selective entry system. In Science, Mathematics, English and Geography all students take a two-year Key Stage 3 qualification allowing them to start their GCSE studies early.

Demographics

According to the school's most recent Ofsted report: "Most students are from a

White British White British is an ethnicity classification used for the native white population identifying as English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Northern Irish, or British in the United Kingdom Census. In the 2011 census, the White British population ...

heritage, and a broadly average proportion is from minority ethnic backgrounds. No students are in the early stages of learning English. The proportion of students with special educational needs and/or disabilities is low and the proportion known to be entitled to free school meals is below average."

Notable former pupils

* Prof Lorna Casselton, Professor of Fungal Genetics at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and expert in the sexual behaviour of mushrooms from 1997 to 2003 * Prof Deborah Ashby, Professor of Medical Statistics and Clinical Trials at Imperial College London and expert on Bayesian statistics *

Brigadier Brigadier is a military rank, the seniority of which depends on the country. In some countries, it is a senior rank above colonel, equivalent to a brigadier general or commodore, typically commanding a brigade of several thousand soldiers. I ...

Jill Field CBE, Matron-in-Chief of the Army and Director of Defence Nursing Services from 1989 to 1992 * Jo Richardson, Labour MP for

Barking Barking may refer to: Places * Barking, London, a town in East London, England ** London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, a local government district covering the town of Barking ** Municipal Borough of Barking, a historical local government dist ...

from 1974 to 1994 * Sarah Wilhelmy, Former Great Britain international Athlete and representative at the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 ( Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from ...

* Ruby Tandoh, runner-up on series four of BBC's

The Great British Bake Off ''The Great British Bake Off'' (often abbreviated to ''Bake Off'' or ''GBBO'') is a British television baking competition, produced by Love Productions, in which a group of amateur bakers compete against each other in a series of rounds, atte ...

in 2013 *

Rachel Riley Rachel Annabelle Riley (born 11 January 1986) is a British television presenter. She co-presents the Channel 4 daytime puzzle show ''Countdown'' and its comedy spin-off '' 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown''. She is a mathematics graduate. Her t ...

, co-host of ''

Countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...

'' from 2009.

Arson

In April 2003 the school was closed for two days following a fire in an art room started by a student. On the day of the re-opening another fire was started; eventually three students were arrested in connection with the incidents. There was also another fire started in Room 8 on the middle floor of the towerblock. The second fire was started in close proximity to gas pipes. In total three fires were started in the space of a single month leading to several parents withdrawing their daughters from the school. The school was again attacked in December 2005 causing several thousand pounds worth of damage to the school kitchen and a number of classrooms at the front of the school. The damage was so extensive that the Christmas holiday break was extended for students of years 7 and 8. Reconstruction work took almost a year whilst a new kitchen, dining room and reception area were constructed and a number of classrooms had to be fully refitted.
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References

External links

*
EduBase
{{Coord, 51.5415, 0.7459, type:edu_region:GB-SOS, display=title Educational institutions established in 1913 Grammar schools in Southend-on-Sea Girls' schools in Essex Academies in Southend-on-Sea School buildings in the United Kingdom destroyed by arson 1913 establishments in England