Colston's Girls' School

History

The school opened in 1891. It was a selective independent school until voluntarily converting to a state-funded Academy in September 2008. The Academy is majority controlled by the Society of Merchant Venturers, a private charitable organisation in ownership of a private investments company with dealings in defence contracting, tobacco, genetically modified agriculture and the petroleum industry. Edward Colston Gave money to run the school long ago.

The school mottos are; We cherish our history but look to the future, and Go and do thou likewise taken from the biblical story of the Good Samaritan. It is a multi-faith school.

Girls in year 7 study French language and Spanish. They also have a French trip every year in May to go to France for about 3 days, and year 8 upwards study either French, Spanish or both, along with either Russian, German or Latin, which they can continue with for GCSEs. In the sixth form they have a choice of studying any of these languages, plus Italian, Mandarin Chinese or Japanese for A level, with trips overseas to expand the girls' speaking abilities.

The school encourages the arts and sports, with teams entering competitions and tournaments across the country in sports such as athletics, hockey, and netball. An annual exhibition of the girls' art work is also displayed at Bristol Guild of Applied Art.

In July 2007, the school announced that they had reached agreement with the government to become an Academy from 2008, sponsored by the Society of Merchant Venturers. In accord with the funding agreement, the admissions criteria are not based on how close pupils live to the school. A tenth of admissions are based on aptitude in a foreign language, and then priority is given to siblings of existing pupils. Most of the remaining places are allocated on a random basis to children who live in Bristol, with a quarter of places randomly allocated to applicants in the districts surrounding Bristol (approximating to the former county of Avon). In 2013 the agreed intake increased to 140 pupils, with a sixth form maximum of 180 pupils, from an original academy intake of 112 pupils with a 160 pupil sixth form.

The school building was designed by William Venn Gough and dates from 1891. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II listed building.

In August 2013, the school received public attention due unclear reporting on an outdated policy relating to homosexuality and section 28. A nationwide petition protesting this change began to circulate and a response to this has yet to be received from the academy. However, the school has never taught section 28 style lessons, and current policies (which are all made public) show that the administrative error has already been corrected.

Academic achievement

The school has improved its results almost year on year and achieved its best ever GCSE scores in 2011, the table below shows the percentage of students hitting the key measure of 5 A*-C including English and Mathematics.

The Dolphin School

In September 2012, a primary school known as the Dolphin School opened near the main site. It will have around 30 pupils.