Kesteven and Sleaford High School

Infobox UK school
name = Kesteven and Sleaford High School

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motto = Must Give Else Never Can Receive (from William Wordsworth "The Prelude" Book XI.333-4
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established = 1902
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type = Selective
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head = Mrs A Ross
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specialist = Visual Arts
street = Jermyn Street
city = Sleaford
county = Lincolnshire
country = England
postcode =
LEA = Lincolnshire County Council
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staff = 45 teachers approx.
enrollment = 844 student approx.
gender = Female
lower_age = 11
upper_age = 18
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colours = Green and yellow.
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website = http://www.kshs.lincs.sch.uk/
website_name = Kesteven and Sleaford High School

Kesteven and Sleaford High School (KSHS) is a grammar school for girls aged between eleven and eighteen, located on Jermyn Street in the small market town of Sleaford in Lincolnshire, close to Sleaford train station.

History

KSHS was founded in 1902 as the then independent Sleaford and Kesteven High School Ltd.

Awards

KSHS is a specialist Arts College in the visual arts, awarded in 2003. KSHS has also been awarded several quality marks in recent years: Career Mark (2006), Charter Mark (2002, 2006), Artsmark Gold (2002, 2007), and Investors in People status (annually since 1997). KSHS was also the first and only school in Lincolnshire to be awarded the ICT mark (2006), and has also received a DfES Achievement Award. The school is a founding member of Sleaford Education and Business Partnership. In May 2007 the school was identified by the DfES as a High Performing Specialist School (HPSS).

In 2007 KSHS was the only United Kingdom school selected by the University of Canberra to take part in a research programme into the value of educational technologies in schools, along with one school from the US and one from Australia.

Campus

KSHS occupies a fairly congested but attractive site between Sleaford's high street (known as Southgate) to the east and the site of the long-demolished twelfth-century Sleaford Castle to the west. The school is housed in a number of buildings, some old and some relatively modern. One of the old buildings is no. 62 Southgate, built about 1850 in the Jacobean style by a local architect called Charles Kirk who was responsible for a number of Sleaford's most prominent nineteenth-century buildings. New buildings for the twenty-first century include a technology block, sports hall and drama studio, together with the Catermole Block housing the new purpose-built library. The school is in the process of installing an operational Foucault pendulum in a specially designed and decorated room in the Catermole Block.

The school has its own playing fields on-site.

tudents

Highly popular, and with demand for places outstripping supply, the school has pupils drawn from 200 square rural miles covering a large area of South Lincolnshire and as far as Newark in Nottinghamshire. KSHS offers an extremely supportive environment, with special provision for the talented and gifted as well as those with special needs, and as a result unauthorised absences are extremely low (0.1%). A number of the pupils and staff have connections to the Royal Air Force since the school lies only a few miles from the RAF College at Cranwell.

The annual intake to Year 7 for Key Stage 3 is around 120 though in 2006 the number rose as a one-off to 150. In 2006-7 there were 844 girls on the roll.

The sixth form is joint, shared with Sleaford's other schools: Carre's Grammar School, and St. George's College of Technology, a mixed non-selective school.

A number of the pupils are members of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY), and represent the highest school membership for Lincolnshire.

Abi Titmuss, who since 2003 has achieved fame as a TV personality and a model, attended the school from 1987 until 1994.

Fieldwork and other activities

KSHS offers foreign trips for pupils studying Geography, History and Art. History pupils in Year 11 have the opportunity to study the Third Reich and the Cold War on the annual journey to Berlin, and can also take part in the joint Geography and History trip to Paris and Normandy. Some Geography students participated in a trip to Iceland in 2007.

History pupils are offered a variety of other trips within the UK. For example, Year 7 pupils visit Lincoln Castle, Year 8 pupils make a full-day visit to Parliament in London, and Year 9 pupils visit the Holocaust Centre at Laxton, near Newark.

Geography pupils participate in field trips within the UK as well.

Art students are offered a visit to New York or Paris. Those studying languages can take part in foreign exchange visits.

The school supports pupils participating in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme at Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Performance

100% of KSHS pupils gain five or more GCSEs at A*-C, and over 80% achieve A*-B. The average UCAS point score (2006) at A level is 343 with the average point score per examination entry being 79.3. More than 90% of the AS/A2 level students go on to higher education.

Amongst KSHS's SAT results for 2007 were 67% of pupils achieving level 7 in Science, the highest level possible.

The Ofsted report for 2007 declared that KSHS 'is an oustanding school which has made many improvements since the last inspection when it was judged to be good. The headteacher and her senior leadership team have developed exemplary systems to monitor the work of the school ... Parents are overwhelmingly positive ... Achievement is oustanding ... There is an outstanding curriculum ... The school provides an excellent level of care and guidance which results in outstanding personal development ... The school is exceptionally well led by the headteacher and her senior team.'

The headteacher is Mrs Alison Ross (appointed 1996), leading a staff of approximately 45 teachers of whom around three-quarters are female.

Notable Alumnae

* Abi Titmuss, model and tv personality

References

* [http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/portal/site/Internet/menuitem.7c7b38b14d870c7bb1890a01637046a0/?urn=120633&providerCategoryID=32 2007 Ofsted report]
* [http://www.sleaford.co.uk/history.htm Sleaford local history site]
* [http://www.hotcourses.com Schoolnet site (requires registration to access school details and reviews)]

External links

* [http://www.kshs.lincs.sch.uk Kesteven and Sleaford High School]
* [http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/portal/site/Internet/menuitem.7c7b38b14d870c7bb1890a01637046a0/?urn=120633&providerCategoryID=32 2007 Ofsted report]
* [http://live.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/index.cfm?fuseaction=performancetables&id=120633 Achievement and Attainment Tables]
* [http://www.dfes.gov.uk/cgi-bin/performancetables/school_06.pl?No=9254005&Mode=Z&Type=SC&Phase=1&Year=06&Base=a&Num=925 Department for Education and Skills Achievement and Attainment tables]