70 boys. Maple Hayes was purchased by Staffordshire council in 1951 after being sold by the Worthington family and officially opened as a boarding school on 18 November 1953. Boys would walk the 3.1 miles to King Edward VI school each day and board at Maple Hayes. It closed as a boy's boarding school in 1981 ending a 200 year history of State boarding schools in the Staffordshire area. Recent developments The present King Edward VI School was created in 1971 by the merger of the grammar school with Kings Hill secondary modern school which had been built on an adjacent site in the 1950s to cater for the City's expanding population. The premises of the former Kingshill School are referred to as Bader Hall in recognition of Douglas Bader, the World War II fighter ace, who opened that school in 1959. The original grammar school area is referred to as 'Johnson' after Dr Samuel Johnson, the famous British author who was educated at the school and lived in Lichfield for a time. The school's success as a comprehensive school owes much to the merging of two strong and successful traditions; on the one hand, the tradition of academic excellence associated with the grammar school and, on the other, the modern school tradition of care and support for the individual. Academic challenge and care for the individual remain the twin guiding principles of the school today. In 2008 a new music block built was built which includes state of the art rooms and an ecological design. Around he same time a new sixth form block was built where sixth form students can relax and socialise it also contains four class rooms used exclusively for sixth form lessons. School Council The aim of the School Council is to provide a forum for the discussion by students' representatives of issues raised by students or staff and which affect the life of the school. Academic performance It gets good results at GCSE and A-level. The A-level results are consistently amongst the top schools in Staffordshire. Notable former pupils since the merger Helen Baxendale, actress Ben Sharpe, Olympian, Sydney 2000 Simon Smith (rugby union), Cambridge University, Wasps RUFC & England Rigby Union as a Grammar School Elias Ashmole John Everard, Ambassador from 2006-8 to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and from 2001-5 to Uruguay Admiral Sir Frederic Fisher CVO, younger brother