Rochester Grammar School (known as Rochester Grammar School for Girls until 2006) often abbreviated to RGS is a grammar school for the education of girls between the ages of 11 and 18. It has academy status. It is now known as just "Rochester Grammar School" following the introduction of boys into the sixth form. Rochester Grammar School is located on Rochester Maidstone Road, opposite the Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School. Their sixth form is mixed but the rest of the school is single-sex. History The Rochester Grammar School for Girls was established in 1888 under the powers of the Endowed School’s Act of 1869, which allowed the charitable trustees of the Bridge Wardens to donate the necessary funds for a girls’ grammar school. This was seen as progressive as it pioneered education for girls. Each year the school celebrates its founding with a special service at Rochester Cathedral. The school building, near the centre of Rochester, was opened in January 1889 by the Countess of Darnley. The school included a morning Kindergarten, which closed in the late 1930s. In 1939, after the outbreak of the Second World War, the school building was taken over by the Civil Defence and the pupils were evacuated to Canterbury, moving in 1940 to Pontypridd then Porthcawl in South Wales. Several bombs fell on the school site during an incendiary raid in 1941, the main school building suffering slight damage. From 1941 an increasing number of pupils began to return to live in Rochester, and in 1942 the school was reopened, although parts of the building remained occupied by the Civil Defence until the summer of 1944. The first male teachers were appointed in the 1960s. In 1969 additional school buildings were opened 1.3 km south of the existing school on the outskirts of Rochester. The need for staff and pupils to commute between the two sites, overcrowding and the dilapidation of the old building eventually led to the decision to consolidate the school at one location, and in April 1989 work began on additional buildings on the newer southern site. The original school building was finally closed in 1990, with the site sold for housing and a health centre. The move to the new site allowed an expansion in the school, and it has grown in size to over 1,100 students, with nearly 300 in the sixth form. Since 2004 male students have been