Stroud High School (SHS) is a grammar school with academy status for girls aged 11 to 18 located in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England History Stroud High School was founded in 1904 as the Girls' Endowed School by a group of local citizens led by solicitor Mr. A. J. Morton Ball, who decided that the girls of Stroud and the surrounding areas deserved a secondary school to match Marling School for boys that had been founded some years earlier. As a suitable building was not available, the school was initially housed in rooms in the School of Science and Art in Lansdown, Stroud. Miss D.M. Beale, niece of Dorothea Beale the founder of St Hilda's College, Oxford and long-term headmistress of Cheltenham Ladies' College was appointed as the first headmistress. In 1912, D.M. Beale, her staff and seventy girls moved into a new purpose built building in the Queen Anne style which is still part of the current school complex. In 1939, a school hall was added. In early 1940, girls from Edgbaston High School in Birmingham were evacuated to Stroud High School, returning only when suitable air raid facilities had been constructed at EHS. In 1964, the Stroud Secondary Technical School for Girls merged with Stroud High School. In 1988, the school became a grant-maintained school and in 1998 a foundation school. In 2003, the school became a Specialist School for Science and Mathematics. In 2008, Tim Withers was appointed as its first male head in over 100 years. In 2009, the school had a second specialism in Modern Foreign Languages. In 2010, Stroud High School, operating through the Afri Twin organisation, twinned with Rustenburg School for Girls and Mfuleni High School, in the greater Cape Town area of Western Cape Province, South Africa. In 2018, the school opened their new £1 million grant funded refurbished/rebuilt science block with two new classrooms. In 2019 the school opened up places for its new co-ed cohort as Stroud High Sixth Form after splitting from Marling School. German classes are still shared and the sixth forms share the Sixth Form Block. Academic standards Stroud High School has consistently achieved a GCSE Level 2 threshold (the equivalent of 5+A*-C) of 100%. The Ofsted Report, which graded the school as 'Outstanding' was compiled in December 2010. An inspection in 2013 revealed there were then "Areas for improvement". Academy status In February 2011, Stroud High School began