By the early 1900s, with its first graduate headmistress, Miss Margaret Lea, the school had grown and flourished, and its curriculum included Euclid and Botany. Several of the buildings we now know and use were added, and a trickle of sixth formers began to go to university. The school also had boarders.

Under the charismatic leadership of the authoress Miss Eleanor Doorly, the school introduced innovations like Form and School councils (very far-sighted for the 1920s), and many of Miss Doorly’s famous friends from the world of the arts came to speak to the girls.

During the Second World War, King’s shared its premises with girls evacuated from King Edward’s School in Camp Hill, Birmingham, with King’s girls attending in the morning and Camp Hill in the afternoon. By the end of the war, the 1944 Education Act had done away with the boarding house and direct grant pupils came to King’s High, having passed the 11+ and winning scholarships for their fees.

The school expanded greatly in the years that Miss Winifred Hare was headmistress, and by her retirement in 1970 it had over 600 pupils. By this time, university entrance was far more widely achieved by sixth formers and each year several girls won coveted Oxbridge places. This continued through Miss Leahy’s years in the 1970s and ‘80s, when the school hat became obsolete (following a vote in school council).

By the end of the twentieth century, when Mrs Anderson was headmistress, newer school subjects like Computing, Business Studies and Psychology were introduced. The school colours were changed from the old gold and black to today’s pale green and blue. Uniform was dispensed with altogether for sixth form girls.

During the first years of the 21st century, with Mrs Surber at the helm, the school continues to be at the forefront of girls’ education, offering wider opportunities for extra-curricular activities such as foreign exchanges, Mandarin classes, climbing and ballet lessons. In addition, an ambitious building programme is underway, with the Sixth Form Centre and ICT suite already up and running and further development planned over the next ten years.