Southend High School for Girls is a grammar school with academy status situated on Southchurch Boulevard in the east of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. It caters for students from the age of 11 through to 18 years old.

As of 2022, the school's most recent Ofsted inspection was in 2011, when it was judged Outstanding.^[1]

The school has a specialism in languages. All Key Stage 3 students study French and German or French and Spanish (replacing Latin in 2002, which is now available as an additional subject studied off-timetable).^{[citation needed]}

The school also offers other additional languages to the students, for example Chinese, Russian or Polish, but these come at a personal expense to the student themselves.

The school achieves excellent results at A level and other examinations, consistently above national averages, in part because of the selective entry system.^[2]

In Science, Mathematics, English and Geography all students take a two-year Key Stage 3 qualification allowing them to start their GCSE studies early.^{[citation needed]}

According to the school's most recent Ofsted report:

"Most students are from a White British heritage, and a broadly average proportion is from minority ethnic backgrounds. No students are in the early stages of learning English. The proportion of students with special educational needs and/or disabilities is low and the proportion known to be entitled to free school meals is below average."^[3]

• Prof Lorna Casselton, Professor of Fungal Genetics at the University of Oxford and expert in the sexual behaviour of mushrooms^[4] from 1997 to 2003
• Prof Deborah Ashby, Professor of Medical Statistics and Clinical Trials at Imperial College London and expert on Bayesian statistics^[5]
• Brigadier Jill Field CBE, Matron-in-Chief of the Army and Director of Defence Nursing Services from 1989 to 1992
• Jo Richardson, Labour MP for Barking from 1974 to 1994
• Sarah Wilhelmy, Former Great Britain international Athlete and representative at the 2000 Summer Olympics
• Ruby Tandoh, runner-up on series four of BBC's The Great British Bake Off in 2013
• Rachel Riley, co-host of Countdown from 2009.^[6]

In April 2003 the school was closed for two days following a fire in an art room started by a student.^[7][8] On the day of the re-opening another fire was started; eventually three students were arrested in connection with the incidents.^[9] There was also another fire started in Room 8 on the middle floor of the towerblock. The second fire was started in close proximity to gas pipes. In total three fires were started in the space of a single month leading to several parents withdrawing their daughters from the school.^[10]

The school was again attacked in December 2005 causing several thousand pounds worth of damage to the school kitchen and a number of classrooms at the front of the school. The damage was so extensive that the Christmas holiday break was extended for students of years 7 and 8.^[11][12] Reconstruction work took almost a year whilst a new kitchen, dining room and reception area were constructed and a number of classrooms had to be fully refitted.^[12][13]