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Welcome to Queen’s

The Queen’s School is a leading selective GSA Independent day school providing education for around 450 girls between the ages of 4 and 18 years.

The school is highly successful, with a strong and consistent emphasis on the needs of individual pupils that focuses on enabling pupils to challenge, question and develop.  The Queen’s school is well known for its excellent pastoral care, which is a hallmark of its community and underpins the academic focus that characterises the school.  The vast majority of our pupils go on to attend their first choice university, including medical and Oxbridge places, and leave the school as confident, articulate and well balanced young women.

The school is situated close to the centre of the thriving, historic city of Chester and a few minutes cycle ride or drive from the unspoiled countryside of Cheshire, Wirral and North Wales.  Manchester and Liverpool are within easy reach, and London is 2.5 hours away via train.

The ISI awarded the school the highest standard of “excellent” in all categories in its most recent inspection.

The History of the School

The Queen’s School was founded in 1878. The school's pupils achieved considerable distinction from the outset. Of the sixteen girls who joined The Queen's School on its opening day in 1878, two would go on to win places at Cambridge - the first of many in a long and honourable tradition.

The school would subsequently provide Chester with its first female solicitor, its first lady mayor, the first woman to receive the Freedom of the City, the first woman president of the Freemen and Guilds in over 800 years and the first female cathedral provost in Church of England history.

The School buildings were erected with the financial assistance of several leading Chester families, on land on the Chester City Walls provided by the Duke of Westminster. This site still exists today as the main part of the Senior School. Further buildings have been constructed or acquired so that the school now inhabits a mixture of Georgian and Victorian buildings as well as more modern ones. The Queen’s Lower School was originally based in two large Victorian houses on Liverpool Road, Chester. It still occupies this site but has expanded in recent years.

Although much has changed since The Queen’s School was founded, our values-driven approach to education has remained the same and the school’s motto of “Honour Wisdom” still rings true and resonantly today.

Working at Queen’s

The Queen’s School has an outstanding reputation for staff and pupil welfare and staff career progression is important. Continuous professional development opportunities are offered, as is specific support for Early Career Teachers as part if the ECF. The school is a member of the Girls’ Schools Association network of schools, enabling access to a wealth of support, information and training.

Teachers at The Queen’s School are ambitious for themselves and for the school, but mainly for their pupils, getting to know them as individuals to set challenging but achievable targets. Across all year groups, there is an expectation of excellent results.  At the Senior School, this includes the preparation of students for entry to highly competitive courses, including Oxbridge.

The Queen’s School invests proactively in technology to support teaching and learning, and an extensive and well-populated Virtual Learning Environment is well used by all pupils and staff at both the Lower and Senior Schools.  All pupils in the Senior School have individual iPads and all teachers (Lower and Senior Schools) are provided with individual iPads to enhance their practice.

All members of staff are expected to contribute to the school's extracurricular programme, which mainly operates at lunchtimes and after school, and to support the marketing and admissions departments when necessary.

The Queen's School participates in a pension scheme with Legal and General and the Government Childcare Voucher scheme, offers discounted school lunches, reimburses parking costs for staff and offers a pro rata 50% fee reduction for staff members who would like their daughter/s to attend the school.