At the beginning of the 20th century there were four girls' elementary schools in Sutton Coldfield. There was, however, no secondary school.

Older girls who wished to continue their schooling had to travel to Aston. For the next 30 years the town council dithered. By 1914, a site behind the town hall had been chosen for a girls' secondary school.

This school would accommodate 200 girls, with the costs being shared by the town council and the county council. But that was as far as the plan got: not a brick was laid. Discussions resumed after the First
World War.

In 1925 the town council expressed support for the levying of a halfpenny rate by the county council and a contribution of its own of £6,250 to meet the capital costs. In 1926 provisional plans were drawn up. Finally, in 1929, building on a site on the corner of Jockey Road on the main road to Birmingham got underway.

The 'imposing' building contained a dining room, classrooms, labs for physics and chemistry and extensive facilities for domestic science. Reflecting the attitudes of the times, the Countess of Warwick declared at the foundation ceremony in January 1930 that 'a woman's activities were still chiefly in the home.’

The school was in fact not completed until 1939 when a science block and a gym were added. At this point 400 girls were on roll.

The first headmistress of Sutton Coldfield High School for Girls was Miss K.L. Bradley. Formerly a teacher of English at King Edward VI High School for Girls, she had in 1924 had been awarded a scholarship to study the education system in the United States.

In September 1929, 150 girls arrived at the school. The aim was that these girls would in due course be entered for the school certificate: in 1934 40 girls were entered for this exam and all were successful. Two girls, having passed the higher school certificate, won scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge in 1935. But it wasn't all study. In March 1934, a play called 'The Knight of the Burning Pestle' was put on. And in June 1935 there was a fete to help purchase a pavilion for the new sports fields paid for by the town council and county council. At this event the girls gave 'a demonstration of a massed drill:

• Glimpses into Sutton's Past
  by Stephen Roberts can be ordered
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Associate Professor
Stephen Roberts