History
The Rochester Grammar School has a unique history. It was opened in 1888 under the Endowed School’s Act of 1869 which allowed the charitable trustees of the Bridge Wardens to donate the necessary funds for a girls’ grammar school. It was progressive even then, pioneering higher education for girls and its reputation has grown over the years. It is characterised by high expectations and the pursuit of personal excellence. Each year they celebrate their founding with a special service at Rochester Cathedral. In 1990 the school moved to a new site and since then it has grown in size to over 1100 students. The school is a combined Mathematics/ICT and Music specialist school, the first nationally. There are nearly 300 in the sixth form, including (since 2004) male students. The school’s mission statement is “Furthering Excellence through support, encouragement and achievement”.
In November 2010 the RGS became an “Academy of Excellence” under the Government’s academy programme for outstanding schools. The school has facilities including interactive whiteboards in all classrooms, network and wireless ICT, a sixth form centre, a newly built and hi-tech teaching and training suite named after one of the school’s famous ex-students – Evelyn Dunbar. Evelyn was the only female commissioned war artist. Pictures illustrating her famous sense of the home front during World War II decorate the suite.
The RGS has a flexible and unique curriculum, which includes early entry to advanced level studying and the prestigious International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. The school claims to have a commitment to the highest standards in teaching, attaining independence and lifelong learning.
Read more about this topic: Rochester Grammar School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)