Derby High School, Derby, is an independent secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

 with a junior department at Littleover

Littleover

Littleover is a large suburb of Derby, England situated between Rose Hill, Normanton, Sunny Hill, South Derbyshire and Mickleover about three miles south west of Derby city centre.-History:The history of the name of Littleover is simple...

, Derby

Derby

Derby , is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands region of England. It lies upon the banks of the River Derwent and is located in the south of the ceremonial county of Derbyshire. In the 2001 census, the population of the city was 233,700, whilst that of the Derby Urban Area was 229,407...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The senior school (ages 11 to 18) is for girls only, but the kindergarten

Kindergarten

A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

 and junior school (3 to 11) are co-educational.

Overview

The school is non-denominational and is a member of the Woodard Schools

Woodard Schools

Woodard Schools is a group of Anglican schools affiliated to the Woodard Corporation which has its origin in the work of Nathaniel Woodard, an Anglo-Catholic clergyman....

 group.

The senior school takes girls only, from the age of eleven to eighteen. Some girls gain responsibility as prefects, and there is a Head Girl. The Sixth Form

Sixth form

In the education systems of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and of Commonwealth West Indian countries such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Jamaica and Malta, the sixth form is the final two years of secondary education, where students, usually sixteen to eighteen years of age,...

, divided into Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth, has some eighty girls.

Girls in the senior school are divided into Houses, which compete in the areas of sport, drama and music.

The co-educational kindergarten and junior school take boys and girls from the age of three. Many girls continue into the senior school, but boys move on to other schools at the age of eleven.

Premises

The school's main premises are at Hillsway, Littleover, and include sports facilities on site. A new building, planned to open in late 2008, contains a Sixth Form Centre.

Curriculum

The curriculum is built around teaching for GCSE

General Certificate of Secondary Education

The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 and Level 1 in Key Skills...

 and A-level. In the senior school, all subjects are taught by specialist teachers.

The senior school begins with Year 7, which has two forms of equal ability, each with a form tutor. Girls are taught in forms for all subjects except Maths

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, for which there are sets. In Year 7, the traditional core subjects are taught: English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 (with Drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

), Maths, History

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, Geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, Chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, Biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, Art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, Music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, Design Technology, Home Economics, Religious Studies, PE, Information and Communication Technology.

In Year 8, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 becomes a second language.

In Years 9, 10, and 11, all subjects are offered to GCSE. All girls must take Maths, English, and ICT, and choose six other courses, including at least one language and one science.

Years 12 and 13 are the Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth, with most girls taking three A-levels.

There are also programmes of visits to support learning, with regular trips to places and events outside the school for sciences, History, Geography, and Religious Studies.

GCSE results

At GCSE, in recent years one hundred per cent of girls have gained five GCSEs at grades 'A starred' to 'C', and at those grades the school has an average pass rate of ninety-eight per cent across all subjects. Sixty-six per cent of all GCSE grades are 'A starred' or 'A', well over three times the national average for all schools.

Sports

Physical education is compulsory for all children in the school. The main school sports are hockey

Hockey

Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...

, netball

Netball

Netball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ...

, gymnastics

Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

, and tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

, plus dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

, basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

, badminton

Badminton

Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...

, rounders

Rounders

Rounders is a game played between two teams of either gender. The game originated in England where it was played in Tudor times. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a round wooden, plastic or metal bat. The players score by...

, swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

, trampolining

Trampolining

Trampolining is a competitive Olympic sport in which gymnasts perform acrobatics while bouncing on a trampoline. These can include simple jumps in the pike, tuck or straddle position to more complex combinations of forward or backward somersaults and twists....

, and volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

.

Extra-curricular activities

Activities outside school are strongly encouraged and include school plays, the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, public speaking, debating, the school choir, and school clubs for music, crafts, science and photography. There are music and drama workshops, some being joint events with Derby Grammar School for boys

Derby Grammar School

Derby Grammar School is an independent and selective grammar school at Littleover near the city of Derby, England. Founded as a school for boys in 1995, it takes boys from the age of seven and currently has around three hundred pupils...

.

There are annual trips to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 and Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, plus a four-week World Challenge

The World Challenge

The World Challenge is a competition that was first hosted in 2005 by BBC and sponsored by Newsweek and Shell. It accepts projects from around the world that deal with social, environmental and community issues and uses business methods to try to improve upon those issues in the world.- The 2005...

 expedition every other year.

Fees and scholarships

The school's fees for the year 2011-2012 range from £7,110 to £10,080 a year, depending on the age of the child. There are scholarships and also other bursaries for cases of financial need.

Kindergarten

The kindergarten

Kindergarten

A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

, currently headed by Michelle Hannaford, is for boys and girls aged three to seven. It emphasizes learning through fun activities and has small class sizes.