Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School

Girls from Camden School for Girls arrived on Thursday 19 October 1939. The girls had spent the previous few weeks resident in Uppingham in Rutland. The headteacher of the Camden school was Olive Wright. 450 girls were expected, but only 352 arrived.[3][4][5] Girls from Grantham were in the classrooms in the mornings and Camden girls were in the afternoon. Camden girls were resident at Stonebridge House, which became the police station. The music teacher Grace Williams, a Welsh composer, arrived with the Camden school, and composed pieces whilst at Grantham. Zoologist Hilda Mabel Canter, later employed by the Freshwater Biological Association and associated with the British Phycological Society, was evacuated with the school.

Thirty-two Camden girls were confirmed at St Wulfram's Church, Grantham on Saturday 16 March 1940 by the bishop of Lincoln, Nugent Hicks.[6] On Friday 28 June 1940, two 17-year-old Camden girls, Margaret McMillan and Marjorie Catch, had their play A Man's World broadcast as part of Theatreland on the BBC Home Service and the BBC Forces Programme, introduced by Raymond Glendenning; it featured Celia Johnson and Owen Nares.[7][8]

During the war, the hockey pitch was changed to grow hay instead. Many staff under their thirties from boys' schools had to join up; this situation did not really affect girls' schools as much. Elsie Suddaby, the famous soprano performed at the school, through Grantham Music Club, on Friday 18 October 1940.[9] Isolde Menges, the violinist, performed on Friday 22 November 1940 at the school [10] Colonel William Vere Reeve King-Fane was Chairman of the Governors from December 1940, until his death in 1943.[11] The preparatory school closed in 1944.

In December 1947, the prize day was in the drill hall. A new association was formed with a French school in Châteauroux in Centre-Val de Loire.[12] In early 1954 the school needed more buildings to have a three-form entry by September 1955. [13] New buildings were added around 1955, costing £50,000 for an extra form entry. In February 1955 a contract for £57,900 built an extension and a new kitchen, with furniture costing £5,500.[14] By 1956, there were over 500 girls at the school.

The extensions would open on Friday 11 October 1957, for a three-form entry school, with a new gym, hall and dining room, and crafts room with a hand loom with the bishop of Grantham Anthony Otter attending the ceremony and the chair of the governors Alf Roberts, with T.W. Golby, the director of education at Kesteven, and F.W. Jenkinson, chairman of Kesteven council. The head girl was Andrea Thody. By 1957, from 1910 there had been only two headteachers.[15][16][17] Due to the larger school, the houses Rossetti and Potter were introduced in 1958.

When prime minister Margaret Thatcher visited on Friday 12 February 1982 there were 150 protesters, mainly from Grantham College and the unemployed, who mostly chanted the unoriginal 'Tories Out'; it appeared to be a largely orchestrated and contrived event; the protesters main complaint was against education cuts; no-one was arrested. The head girl was Lorna Shipman. It was a two day tour of the area; the previous day Margaret Thatcher had been to the Stamford Arts Centre and to Lincoln.[18]