WELCOME TO ST ALBANS HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
STAHS is an independent day school for girls aged 4-18. We are a through school and selective at all entry points.
STAHS Prep is a special place: our pupils thrive in our warm, caring community set in 18 acres of fields and woodland. They are bright girls, and we have high aspirations for them. They leave us ready to seize the opportunities of a top-flight secondary education.
STAHS Senior is located in the vibrant and historic city of St Albans. We have sky-high expectations of our students, who thrive in our nurturing, academically focused environment, and achieve outstanding outcomes. They develop into well-rounded, independent young women, ready to take on the world.
STAHS Sixth is a fantastic place to learn. Leadership opportunities abound, and specialist teaching staff are on hand to advise on everything from Med/Vet/Dent applications to overseas study. The STAHS Diploma, which equips our students with the skills, independence, and knowledge needed for the critical early years of adult life, is key to their success.
Beyond STAHS, our former students go on to lead fulfilling lives and make the most positive of impacts on the world. All are invited to join our dynamic global alumni network.
Heritage
STAHS opened in a converted hospital on Holywell Hill on 2 May 1889. Local parents, encouraged by the Abbey’s Reverend Dr Deed, persuaded the Church Schools Company to open a girls’ school in St Albans as the city at that time lacked any facility for the advanced education of girls (beyond the age of 12).
As proof of local interest, the Company required a minimum of one hundred shares to be taken up. In typical St Albans style, the community immediately coalesced and one hundred and twenty shares were subscribed for within three days of the notice.
The School’s intention to provide ‘an Education of the Highest Stamp’ was supported by a robust curriculum including Reading, Writing, English Grammar and Composition, English Literature, French, German, Latin, History, Geography, Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Higher Mathematics, Physical Science, Calisthenics, Domestic Economy, Needlework, Drawing and Class Singing.
The School’s first pupil was the daughter of the Archdeacon, Walter John Lawrance, the Rector of the Abbey Church and later the first Dean of St Albans. In his speech during the School’s opening ceremony, Archdeacon Lawrance shared his hope that the High School would provide for girls an education equal to that provided by the Grammar School for boys. This is remarkable considering that, less than 25 years earlier, the authors of the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1865 remarked that although the state of girls’ education was ‘on the whole, unfavourable’, there was nothing wrong in educating girls as ‘decorative, modest, marriageable beings’!
The hospital was never suitable accommodation for the School; the new premises on Townsend Avenue opened on 21 September 1908, and the original building still occupies the heart of the campus. The Prep School moved to its home in Wheathampstead in 2003.
At its founding, the School provided religious instruction ‘in accordance with the principles of the Church of England’. STAHS remains a Church of England school to this day, although we warmly welcome families of all faiths or none.
Throughout its more than 130-year history, the High School has seen world wars, pandemics, twelve headmistresses and a dramatic shift in athletic attire (the girls used to wear ankle-length woollen skirts and cotton blouses for sport). Through it all, we’ve retained that spark that set us apart at our founding and we continue to pride ourselves on providing an Education of the Highest Stamp.
