Ashford School
Encyclopedia
Ashford School is an independent school in East Hill, Ashford
Ashford, Kent
Ashford is a town in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. In 2005 it was voted the fourth best place to live in the United Kingdom. It lies on the Great Stour river, the M20 motorway, and the South Eastern Main Line and High Speed 1 railways. Its agricultural market is one of the most...

, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

. For the vast majority of its 111 years of existence it has been a school purely for girls but in 2006 boys were admitted in some year groups and it is now a school for both sexes from the age of 3 to 18 offering boarding and day facilities.

The current headteacher is Mr Mike Buchanan.

The school is owned and run by the United Church Schools Trust
United Church Schools Trust
The United Church Schools Trust is a large education charity in the United Kingdom which owns and operates a group of 11 independent schools.-History:...

 and is a member of The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.

Space shuttle experiment

In 1992 a science experiment designed by four girls at the school flew on the Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

 on flight STS-47
STS-47
STS-47 was the 50th Space Shuttle mission of the program, as well as the second mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission mainly involved conducting experiments in life and material sciences.-Crew:-Backup crew:-Mission parameters:* Mass:...

 The experiment had been designed in 1985 by the girls who had won a competition organised by Independent Television News
Independent Television News
ITN is a news and content provider with headquarters in the United Kingdom. It is made up of four key businesses: ITN News, ITN Source, ITN Productions and ITN Consulting. The ITN logotype can be displayed in any of 4 different colours, each of which represents a business unit. This is the...

. The chemical garden
Chemical Garden
A chemical garden is an experiment in chemistry normally done by adding solid metal salts such as copper sulfate or cobalt chloride to an aqueous solution of sodium silicate . This results in growth of plant like forms in minutes to hours. The chemical garden was first observed and described by...

 experiment was successful but the Liesegang rings
Liesegang rings
Liesegang rings are a phenomenon seen in many, if not most, chemical systems undergoing a precipitation reaction, under certain conditions of concentration and in the absence of convection.-History:...

 failed to operate correctly due to a friction
Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:...

 in parts of the mechanism. On their return they were displayed in the London Science Museum. The seven year delay had been caused by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida at 11:38 am EST...

 which occurred in 1986 shortly before the intended flight.

Notable former pupils

  • Louise Burfitt-Dons
    Louise Burfitt-Dons
    Louise Olivian Burfitt-Dons is an English writer, humanitarian and global warming campaigner who is best known for her anti-bullying activism as the founder of the charity Act Against Bullying....

     - writer and campaigner
  • Henry Wilcoxon
    Henry Wilcoxon
    Henry Wilcoxon was an actor born in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies, and best known as a leading man in many of Cecil B. DeMille's films, also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films....

    - actor

External links

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