Southend High School for Girls

Southend High School for Girls is a selective girls' grammar school for ages 11 to 18 in Southend-on-Sea. The school presents itself through the motto "Excellence in Everything" and marks more than 100 years of educational history. With about 1,253 pupils and a large sixth form, SHSG is a substantial Essex grammar with a strong academic identity and a visible emphasis on leadership, independence, creativity and performance.

The curriculum is one of the school's clearest strengths. SHSG says its curriculum is ambitious, carefully sequenced and designed to go beyond the National Curriculum. In Lower School, pupils study separate sciences from Year 7, Computer Science, two modern foreign languages selected from French, Spanish and German, and a classical studies programme including Roman and Greek civilisation, ancient Greek, Latin and philosophy. At GCSE, all students complete the EBacc, and the sixth form normally includes four A levels, with many students also completing the EPQ. The sixth-form admissions page lists 26 A-level subjects.

The co-curricular offer has range and personality. SHSG publishes examples including Operation Wallacea in Mexico, World Challenge, ski trips, Duke of Edinburgh expeditions at bronze, silver and gold, school productions, choirs, bands, orchestras and French, German and Spanish exchanges. The school also has a tradition of sporting excellence and uses sixth-form subject captains to support lower and middle-school activity. The result is a grammar school where academic acceleration and wider participation are visibly linked.

Year 7 entry is through the CSSE 11+, with a published admission number of 224. The CSSE route uses English and mathematics papers, standardised and weighted equally, before each school applies its own pass mark and oversubscription rules. SHSG gives priority-area applicants from SS0 to SS9 a quota-based route, with preferential-consideration categories inside and outside the priority area. Official benchmarks record an Outstanding Ofsted judgement from December 2011, +0.74 Progress 8, 100% grade 5+ in English and maths, and 17.7% AAB or better at A level.