Tiffin Girls' School
The Tiffin Girls' School
Nearest train station: Kingston
is a grammar school maintained by the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. There are at present approximately 900 pupils aged between 11 and 19, including over 280 in the sixth form.
The school developed in 1880 from a 17th century foundation, and after fifty years in its previous building, also in Richmond Road, moved to its present site in 1987. The school lies in pleasant open grounds of just over nine acres on the east side of Richmond Road, towards the northern edge of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. In 1999 the school benefited from a generous £500,000 Sport England Lottery Fund Grant. This, combined with fund raising from the school, greatly enhanced the sports facilities for both school and community use. Improvements included a floodlit all-weather astro turf for hockey, floodlit netball/tennis courts and refurbished changing facilities as well as an exciting community sports development programme for after school, weekends and holidays.
More recently in 2000 we became a Beacon School in recognition of our excellence in promoting teaching and learning, especially for gifted and talented pupils and in 2002 we were proud to become one of the country's first Maths & Computing Specialist Colleges. This again links us with our community – extending good practice by working with adult learners as well as with link primary schools. However, this new focus and the financial benefits of £500,000 over four years have not changed the essential nature of the school which is still committed to excellence in all areas of the curriculum. We successfully rebid for specialist status in 2006 and were designated as a specialist college for languages in addition to our existing specialism in maths and computing. Other recent successes include the awards of Sports Mark, Arts Mark Gold, International School Award and Fairtrade School status.
Girls spend seven years here and that is a significant proportion of their lives. It is the time in which they are gaining the knowledge and developing the skills that will equip them for adult life and enable them to make a positive contribution to society. These years should be spent in a challenging, but supportive and well-ordered environment and the girls should feel happy and fulfilled. We do our best to ensure that this is the case.
Almost all Tiffin girls go on to university, and although it is our intention that they will leave school with the best possible examination results, we do not focus exclusively on academic achievement. We place a high value on courtesy and consideration for others. We help the girls to develop self-discipline, a sense of self worth, independence of thought, and confidence in expressing themselves. We encourage participation in a wide range of activities outside the classroom and we hope that every girl will enjoy the experience of being a member of our school community.