Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School

Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School (KGGS) is a grammar school with academy status for girls in Grantham, Lincolnshire, established in 1910. It has over 1000 pupils ranging from ages 11 to 18, and has its own sixth form.

History

KGGS was founded in 1910. Before its establishment Kesteven Local Education Authority had founded the Grantham Institute, which accepted girls. A decision to found a new county grammar school for girls was made by a joint committee of Lincolnshire borough and Grantham Town councils. After the Board of Education recognised Grantham Institute as a secondary grammar school, and the girls' aspect within it, they appointed a principal mistress for the Institute, who would become the Headmistress of a 1910 newly built school called Kesteven and Grantham Girls' Grammar School.^[1]

The former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a pupil at the school between 1936 and 1943, Head Girl in her final year.^[2] Teen author Beverley Naidoo opened the English Department in November 2001. The school was awarded dual specialisms in Language and Science.

Curriculum

The school is located near the boys' grammar school, The King's School, and a small number of KGGS pupils take some lessons there at A Level, in a reciprocal arrangement allowing a few King's pupils to take some lessons at KGGS

Form and house activity

Each form has a form captain and deputy, two school council members and two charity representatives. Form captains deal with problems and represent the form. A school council discusses matters and acts to improve the school and its community. Charity events are organised by forms to raise money for good causes, with a trophy given each year to the form which raises the most.^[3][4]

Pupils are allotted to one of six houses within the school, named after famous female writers and poets: Austen, Brontë, Browning, Eliot, Potter, and Rossetti. Each house has its own colour: Austen-Purple, Potter-Green, Rossetti-Red, Bronte-White, Browning-Black and Eliot-Yellow.^[4][5] Houses are headed by two Year 13 house captains and two Year 12 house deputies. The house system is maintained and supervised by three Year 13 house secretaries and one member of staff.

House events include a sports day, a pantomime, choir, netball, badminton, rounders, debating, public speaking, general knowledge and dance. House pantomimes and choirs have an important place in the school's calendar each year.^[6] House assemblies are held each term, where house captains inform pupils of news, plans and ideas surrounding house events, and encourage participation in activities.

Sport

The school won the U-19 Championships of the English Schools' Table Tennis Association (ESTTA) three times in a row from 2009–11, and also did it from 1986–88; the representative of the ETTA for the East Midlands, Suzanne Airey, went to KGGS.^[7]

Extracurricular activity

There are school exchange programmes with Germany, France and Japan;^[8] many girls undertake one of these opportunities each year. The school's connection with Minami High School, Fukushima, Japan, involves a group of Japanese students visiting Grantham each year.^{[9][10][11][12]} A group of girls taking Spanish GCSE or A Level were recently invited to take part in a Spanish exchange in conjunction with Carre's Grammar School, Sleaford.

Peripatetic teachers run lessons in various instruments and singing. Music clubs include a school choir, female barber shop quintet, orchestra, wind band, and string group. There is a composing club, and a 'Junk group' in which students make Stomp-style music using items such as brooms, cardboard boxes and phone books. There is also an occasional magazine called News4u.^[5][13]

Curriculum support and revision sessions are held, some for GCSE, AS or A-level.

The school runs the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, and school sports teams and individuals compete at a national level.^[5][14]

KGGS holds classes that are open to the public, such as GCSE in Statistics and Digital Imaging, and GCE AS level in Science in Society.

Notable former pupils

• Emily Bates, rising table tennis player^[15][16]
• Georgina Callaghan, singer-songwriter, known for her 2012 album Life in Full Colour
• Prof Brenda Costall, Professor of Neuropharmacology since 1985 at the University of Bradford, and Head of the School of Pharmacy from 1998-2004,^[17] and carried out research for Ondansetron, known as Zofran^[18]
• Prof Val Gibson, Professor in High Energy Physics at the University of Cambridge, married to Prof Andy Parker, also Professor in High Energy Physics
• Vikki Hubbard – high jumper
• Dr Catherine Brown. Head of English at the New College of the Humanities ^[19]
• Shona McCallin, member of the Great Britain women's national field hockey team^{[20][21][22][23]} (took her A-levels elsewhere)
• Hannah Olsson, née Johns, political reporter for BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
• Margot Parker, UKIP MEP
• Eleanor Parry-Griffiths, violinist
• Doris Stokes, well-known medium
• Margaret Thatcher – British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990^[24]
• Clare Tomlinson – Sky Sports presenter

See also

• Kesteven and Sleaford High School - similar girls' school in Sleaford

References

External links

• School website