Bournemouth School for Girls

Infobox UK school
name = Bournemouth School for Girls


size =
latitude = 50.7508
longitude = -1.8528
dms = dms
motto =
motto_pl =
established =
approx =
closed =
c_approx =
type = Foundation school
religion =
president =
head_label =
head = Alistair Brien
r_head_label = Head Girl
r_head = Hannah Davison
chair_label =
Head Girl =
founder_pl =
specialist = Humanities
specialist_pl =
street = Castle Gate Close
Castle Lane West
city = Bournemouth
county = Dorset
country = England
postcode = BH8 9UJ
LEA = Bournemouth
ofsted = 113905
staff =
enrollment = c. 1100
gender = Girls
lower_age = 11
upper_age = 18
houses = Austen
Curie
Franklin
Parks
Rossetti
Shelley
colours = Blue and white
publication =
free_label_1 =
free_1 =
free_label_2 =
free_2 =
free_label_3 =
free_3 =
website = http://www.bsg.bournemouth.sch.uk/
website_name = Bournemouth School for Girls

Bournemouth School for Girls is a grammar school located in Bournemouth, Dorset, exclusively for girls.

It is a girls grammar school and sixth form college, teaching girls aged 11-18.

Academics

Since September 2005, it has been a humanities specialist school. The headteacher is Mr Alistair Brien. The school has roughly 1100 students, including 300 in the sixth form. Many sixth form classes (including Theatre Studies, PE and Psychology) are open to boys from Bournemouth School.

The school is represented by a Senior Team led by the Head Girl, Hannah Davison and the Deputy, Katherine Burgess. There are then 6 house captains (Rachel Dingley, Olivia Spieler, Anna Chessher, Penelope Simons, Rachel DiBiaso and Alice Wilson), making up the senior team. Within each house there are designated positions of a sports prefect, performing arts prefect and a charities prefect.

The Heads of Sixth Form are Mrs Miles (psychology) and Mrs Minney (French). There are 6 forms per year group, denoted by their house initials, A, C, F, P, R and S (prior to 2006 they were denoted .1, .2, .3 etc and prior to 1997 they were denoted A, alpha, B, Beta, P and pi). This switches in Year 10 at the start of GCSEs, from having lessons with the form, to having lessons with a teaching group. For this, 2-5 students from each form are allocated, alphabetically, into a new teaching group. This remains the same for all core lessons (maths, sciences, English), and special groups according to choices are made for each student's individual choice of languages, humanities and arts. On Friday afternoon, year 11 have options in PE that include yoga and kickboxing. On a Wednesday afternoon the Sixth form have a Complementary Activities block in which many outside PE classes are run, including yoga, golf, urban funk and basketball. Students also spend time on work experience placements and doing work in the local community.

House system

Since September 2006 a House system was reimplemented (it had existed when the school was located at the Landsdown site, before moving to its current position on Castle Lane). The Houses were named after influential women, as follows: Austen, Curie, Parks, Shelley, Franklin, and Rossetti. The emblem of the school is a snowdrop, which features on all the House badges.

Uniform

The school has a strict but varied uniform code, which consists of blue and white striped shirt, blue skirt or trousers, and blue "tailored jacket" for Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 (the blazer has only been recently introduced); a blue and white striped shirt, blue skirt or trousers and blue jumper for year 11; The Sixth Form may wear what they choose as long as this is not sportswear, trainers, stilettos, jeans, or anything deemed unsafe.

Productions

The school has an award winning handbell team, who have played at the Royal Albert Hall. Every year the school performs either a junior (years 7-10) or senior (all years, except 7) musical. Theseinvolve the whole school. In recent years these have been "Les Misérables", "Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat", "The Sound of Music', "Grease". Girls often help Bournemouth School in their productions as well (including 2005's "Pirates of Penzance"').

Other extra curricular activities

Bournemouth School for Girls enters teams every year in the Mock Trial Competition, MACE debating, ESU public speaking, Rotary public speaking and Schools' Challenge competitions. There are also friendly debates fortnightly between BSG and BS, held in Bournemouth School's lecture theatre at lunchtime. There is a lower school debating competition sponsored by local solicitors, HG Walker. Also running are sports clubs for table tennis, a gym club, trampolining and ultimate frisbee; as well as Junior Drama club, History club, Science club, and various support clubs for students having difficulty with subjects. There is now a comedy club which meets in W8 every Friday lunchtime.

CCF

The school also has an active Combined Cadet Force, a rarity for a state-funded school. The CCF currently has over 150 members from both Bournemouth School and Bournemouth School for girls. The CCF is run mostly by senior cadets in the 6th forms at both schools. The CCF is open to pupils in year 9 (age 13) upwards with an annual recruitment usually in February. The CCF is split into three sections; Army, Navy and RAF, all with their own uniform. The structure follows a military system, with three senior cadets, three section ICs and other ranks.

Activities that cadets are able to take part in include gliding, flying, shooting, Ten Tors walk, national exchanges and camps including Penhale central camp in the summer term

Ofsted

The school has close links with Bournemouth School, the boys' Grammar School which can be reached by walking up the steep hill on East Way, however governors at the school have made it clear that they would not like to make these links stronger, going against recent Ofsted advice.

External links

* [http://www.bsg.bournemouth.sch.uk/ Official website]
* [http://www.bsccf.co.uk/ Bournemouth School CCF]