Spalding High School, Lincolnshire
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Spalding High School (SHS) is a
grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...
for girls and a mixed
sixth form In the education systems of Barbados, England, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, Wales, and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepa ...
located in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England.


Location and admissions

Spalding High School, situated on Stonegate, Spalding, halfway between the
Welland Welland is a city in the Regional Municipality of Niagara in Southern Ontario, Canada. As of 2021, it had a population of 55,750. The city is in the centre of Niagara and located within a half-hour driving distance to Niagara Falls, Niagara-on ...
(and B1173) and the Coronation Channel to the east. The rear of the school, to the east, backs onto Exeter Drain and the Spalding Academy playing fields. The school also accepts some girls from
Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...
,
Peterborough Peterborough ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in the City of Peterborough district in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. The city is north of London, on the River Nene. A ...
and
Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
. SHS admits pupils aged 11–18, all of whom are required to pass an
11+ exam Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number) * One of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011 Literature * ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *''Eleven'', a 1970 collection of short stories by Patricia Highsmith *''Eleven'', ...
. There are approximately 1,000 staff and students at the school. The headmistress is Michele Anderson.


History

The school opened on 22 January 1920, originally at
Ayscoughfee Hall Ayscoughfee Hall is a grade I listed building and modest associated parkland in central Spalding, Lincolnshire, England, and is a landmark on the fen tour. History The house, currently a museum, was built for a local wool merchant, tradi ...
School, then moved to its current site in the late 1950s. There are a number of
watercolours Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the S ...
of the original site in the school's collection, as well as all full school photos (taken once every five years) dating back to the school's early days. The library keeps an archive of photos, programmes and other memorabilia. A Guide unit was founded in 1925, the 4th Spalding group. In December 1931 Lady Hoskyns gave out the prizes; she attended the same Cambridge college as the headmistress. The speech day on 15 February 1938 was given by Prof Charles Melville Attlee (1894-1971) of University College Nottingham. Sir John Gleed was the chairman of the governors until 1943. There were 265 at the school in the 1940s, with only 14 in the sixth form. Due to lack of room, some girls chose to travel to Wisbech High School in preference. On 27 January 1944, Holland Education Committee purchased 8.5 acres for a new school. Planning permission was given by 1948. In 1948 a Biology laboratory and two classrooms were built on netball courts. In the early 1950s around one in a hundred women went to university. By 1953, there were 410 at the school, with 56 in the sixth form. The 'Daily Mirror' and 'Daily Herald' visited the school in 1953 to look at the cramped buildings. The Minister of Education announced that four classrooms would be built on the boys grammar school playing fields, for the girls' school. But a new school could not be built until 1958. The new classrooms opened in 1955 as the 'Medway Rooms'.


Dual site

In February 1957 the new school foundations were started. The building was to be completed by September 1958, but it would take until January 1959. The school wanted a separate gym, but Sir Oswald Giles of the county council wanted the school hall to be the gym. The new school opened Thursday 8 January 1959. Biology, Chemistry and Physics were taught in separate laboratories. The new school was officially opened Friday 20 March 1959 by Sir Herbert Butcher, with chairman of Holland Education Committee. But the school was now a two-site school. By 1960 there were 500 at the school, with 80 in the sixth form. The swimming pool was built in 1967. 21 year old trainee classics teacher Miss Jennifer Jane Stearman, of 21 Redfearn Close in Cambridge, who taught with Mr Les Churchill, was killed in a vehicle collision, in a Morris 1000, with a truck on the evening of Sunday 18 February 1973, at the southern end of the A1073 Crowland bypass. She was visiting her grandmother in
March, Cambridgeshire March is a The Fens, Fenland market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Isle of Ely area of Cambridgeshire, England. It was the county town of the Isle of Ely which was a separate administrative county from 1889 to 1965. Th ...
, and was taken to Peterborough Hospital. The bypass had opened in 1972, and this was the first death.


Single site

By 1980 the sixth form was 160. A new £1.3m block would open in 1985, with construction starting in May 1984, which would allow all teaching to take place on one site from January 1986. It was officially opened in March 1986 by Frances Manners, Duchess of Rutland; her mother featured in the 2021 ''
A Very British Scandal ''A Very British Scandal'' is a 2021 British three-part historical drama series starring Claire Foy as Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll and Paul Bettany as Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. While not a direct sequel or continuation, its ...
''; the Duchess was pleased that Lincolnshire retained grammar schools, saying 'freedom of choice is the sign of a free society'. By 1989 there were 710 at the school. The £559,000 technology centre was officially opened on Thursday 14 October 1993 by Prof Richard Kimbell, of Goldsmiths College. Construction had started in April 1992, and it opened in January 1993. A new six-classroom £409,000 Languages block was approved by Lincolnshire County Council in May 1994, to start construction in December 1994. The school now had 900 girls, often travelling from Peterborough. The new Languages block was opened in February 1996 by the Leader of Lincolnshire County Council, although had been open since September 1995.


Sport

In the 1960s and 1970s, the school's playing field was frequently used for national and regional schools'
hockey ''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...
competitions. It achieved
sports college Sports Colleges are senior secondary schools which promote sports alongside secondary education. United Kingdom Sports Colleges were introduced in 1997 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The programme enabled sec ...
status in 2003. On 28 April 1983, 13 year old Melanie Hampson had a serious javelin accident, and was taken to the
Pilgrim Hospital Pilgrim Hospital is a hospital in the east of Lincolnshire on the A16, north of the town of Boston near the mini-roundabout with the A52. It is situated virtually on the Greenwich Meridian and adjacent to Boston High School. The fenland area o ...
. In July 1992, the school gymnastics team represented the UK in the European Schools Games in France.


Houses

In a typical year group at SHS there are five forms of approximately 30 pupils. Each form is a member of a house. There are five houses, each named after famous women of historic importance: * Curie - after
Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...
(physicist) * Johnson - after
Amy Johnson Amy Johnson (born 1 July 1903 – disappeared 5 January 1941) was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance records dur ...
(aviator) * Nightingale - after
Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during th ...
(medicine) * Pankhurst - after
Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst (; Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the women's suffrage, right to vote in United Kingdom of Great Brita ...
(women's rights) * Sharman - after
Helen Sharman Helen Patricia Sharman (born 30 May 1963) is a British chemist and cosmonaut who became the first British person, first Western European woman and first privately funded woman in space, as well as the first woman to visit the ''Mir'' space sta ...
(astronaut)


Headteachers

* 1920 - Miss Ethel Strachan Henry, from Putney; from 1926 she was the headmistress of
Boston High School Boston High School, also known as ''Boston High School for Girls'', is a selective grammar school and sixth form college for girls aged 11 to 18 in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. The school's sixth form has been coeducational since 1992. A 201 ...
for twenty years, seeing the Boston girls' school move to the current site in 1939; she died on 15 August 1959. * 1926 - Miss Marjory Chambers, she attended Lincoln Girls' High School and
Cheltenham Ladies College Cheltenham Ladies' College (CLC) is a private boarding and day school for girls aged 11 or older in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. The school was established in 1853 to provide "a sound academic education for girls". It is also a member ...
and Newnham College Cambridge, and previously taught at Wallasey High School; later she was the first headmistress from 1931 to 1944 of Wirral County School for Girls in Lower Bebington; she died on 17 February 1950 in Tunstall * September 1931 - Miss Elizabeth Curry, she had been the headmistress at Trowbridge County High School for Girls in Wiltshire since 1929, and attended Newnham College Cambridge; later she became headmistress of Aigburth Vale High School for Girls from April 1937 until 1959 * April 1937 - Miss Marjorie Ralph, she came from Roedean as a Maths teacher, she also taught from 1927-33 at Queen Mary High School on Long Lane in
Fazakerley Fazakerley is a suburb of north Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is part of the Liverpool Walton Parliamentary constituency. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 16,786. Description Fazakerley is in north Liverpool; neighbouring d ...
(it closed in 1985); on 27 May 1938 she had a head-on collision on the Great North Road in
Long Bennington Long Bennington is a linear village and civil parish in South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, just off the A1 road, north of Grantham and south of Newark-on-Trent. It had a population of 2,100 in 2014 and 2,018 at the 2011 Census. ...
, having passed her driving test in October 1937, and was fined £2 at Spitalgate police court in June 1938 * September 1945 - Miss Jeanne Ouseley, she attended Newnham College Cambridge from 1928 to 1931, and had been a history teacher in West London; she had arrived in Spalding on VJ Day; in December 1952, she married Mr Driver, the former headmaster of the boys' grammar school; her husband's sister was Anne Driver MBE, the pianist of BBC Radio's ''
Listen with Mother ''Listen with Mother'' was a BBC radio programme for children which ran between 16 January 1950 and 10 September 1982. It was originally produced by Freda Lingstrom although for the majority of its run it was produced by George Dixon, and was p ...
''; Jennie Driver died in December 1997 * September 1970 - Miss Dora Leonard, the former headmistress of Wisbech High School from 1953, she had attended Westfield College, she had been a teacher for 37 years when she left in 1976, and moved to live in
Aldborough, Norfolk Aldborough is a village and former civil parish in the North Norfolk district of the English county of Norfolk. It is situated about south of Cromer. The parish was combined with Thurgarton in April 1935 and the two villages are now both in the ...
; she did not believe in the comprehensive system, as there had never been difficulty in transferring girls to the school, when it was required; she died in September 2003 aged 87 * January 1977 - Miss Margaret Ivy McClure, she attended Trinity College Dublin, and taught Maths for five years at
Glenlola Collegiate School Glenlola Collegiate School is an all-girls' grammar school in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. The school was founded as a school for girls in approximately 1880. In 2018 the Education and Training Electorate evaluated the school as "Good ...
in Northern Ireland , and was the deputy head of Broughton High School in Salford; on 9 February 1987 a 49 year old parent, from Moulton, was arrested after assaulting her and deputy head Mrs Margaret Ford but at Lincoln Court in July 1987, the judge believed that it was not a sufficiently criminal assault, and he was fined £100 * September 1991 - Mrs Marguerite Swallow, she had replaced Margaret Ford as deputy head, in January 1988, and was head for two terms, with Jenny Morton as deputy head * April 1992 - John Williams, former headteacher of the Middlecott School in Kirton where he changed the school name in 1987, and was originally from Crewe, since January 1986 when aged 43; he was previously the deputy head of Bourne Grammar School, when living in Sleaford, and he had been head of history at Carre's Grammar School in Sleaford; his wife taught at Kesteven and Sleaford High School, and his Lincolnshire-educated son Andrew Williams (novelist) was a producer of BBC2 ''Newsnight'', later on ''Panorama'', and later creating the six-part BBC documentary series '' World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West'' in 2008


Notable former pupils

* Emma Rayner (), born 1964, who married
BBC East Midlands Today ''BBC East Midlands Today'' is the BBC's regional television news programme for the East Midlands. The programme is broadcast on BBC One from studios at the BBC's East Midlands broadcasting centre in Nottingham with district newsrooms based in ...
presenter Quentin Rayner (a twin) in June 1992 at St Mary's Church, Pinchbeck, with her honeymoon in the
Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...
, daughter of Lutton and Pinchbeck vicar, Rev David Hill, she gained a degree in the History of Art from UEA in 1985, then studied radio journalism at Lancashire Polytechnic; worked as a reporter for Radio Lincolnshire in the late 1980s then Radio Nottingham, where she met her husband, and worked on the new East Midlands Today in 1991 as a reporter, 6 O-levels in 1980, English, French and Art A-levels in 1982; her sisters Zoe (Visual Arts UEA in 1992) and Candida left the school in 1988 and 1990 * Christine Russell (1956–63) - Labour MP 1997-2010 for City of Chester, who unseated
Gyles Brandreth Gyles Daubeney Brandreth (born 8 March 1948) is a British broadcaster, writer and former politician. He has worked as a television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author and publisher. He was a presenter for TV-am's '' Good Morning Bri ...
in 1997. * Laela Pakpour-Tabrizi (1993-2000), trustee of
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
.


Notable former teachers

* Valerie Belton (3 July 1925 - 3 November 2011), she arrived from teaching at
Bromley High School Bromley High School is a girls' private day school located in Bickley, Greater London, part of the Girls' Day School Trust. Originally located in the middle of Bromley, in 1981 it relocated to occupy new buildings set in of grounds and playing ...
, was Head of History from 1953 until 1962 where she ran the Spalding High School Historical Society, and took an interest in Hungarian refugees in 1956; she became deputy head of West Bridgford Grammar School, and lastly headmistress of
Edgbaston High School Edgbaston High School for Girls is a private day school for girls aged 2 to 18 in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England. History In 1846, Elizabeth Brady founded a school in Edgbaston for the daughters of Quakers in 1846 and this ran for 21 ...
from 1967 to 1987; she was originally from west Norfolk, and attended Cheltenham Ladies College and studied History at
St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College (full name = Principal and Council of St. Hilda's College, Oxford) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon saint Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a ...
,''Lincolnshire Free Press'' Tuesday 3 March 1964, page 1 and later retired to
Ingworth Ingworth is a village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. Ingworth is located north of Aylsham and north of Norwich. History Ingworth's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for ''Inga's'' enclosu ...
in Norfolk *
Jenny Randerson, Baroness Randerson Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson, Baroness Randerson (26 May 1948 – 4 January 2025) was a Welsh Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords. She was a junior minister in the Wales Office serving in the Cameron–Clegg coalition. Prior to her ...
(1972-4 history) - Life peer, former educatio
spokesperson
for LibDems in the
Welsh Assembly The Senedd ( ; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, Its role is to scrutinise the Welsh Government and legislate on devolve ...
.


See also

*
Spalding Grammar School Spalding Grammar School (SGS), fully known as The Queen Elizabeth Royal Free Grammar School Spalding, is an 11–18 boys' grammar school in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. By November 2015, a total of 985 boys were enrolled at the school, 277 ...
- a school for boys, but accepts girls into the sixth form.


References


External links


Spalding High School

South Holland Heritage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spalding High School (Uk) Girls' schools in Lincolnshire Grammar schools in Lincolnshire Educational institutions established in 1920 Spalding, Lincolnshire 1920 establishments in England Community schools in Lincolnshire