Grammar’s gulf in class
A snapshot of classrooms past has come to life at a school’s 75th anniversary.
Invicta Grammar School is celebrating its significant birthday, and this year also marks the 50th anniversary of being based in the same area of Maidstone.
The students today enjoy a fun and interactive style of teaching, using Apple Macs and iPads, but the school archives show the classroom of 1951 was a rigid affair, with young women sitting bolt upright behind heavy-duty typewriters.
Invicta began life in 1941 as the girls’ section of the Boys’ Technical School on the junction of Tonbridge Road and Westree Road in Maidstone.
That section separated in 1948 and formed an independent girls’ school in Albion Place for children aged 13 and older.
It is remembered as Maidstone School for Girls, but went through several variations of this name.
It was in 1965, when the then headmistress, Amy Thomas, saw the culmination of work on a site in Vinters Park. Girls began going there from the age of age 11.
Back then, Vinters Park was a bigger area and stretched to Huntsman Lane, where Invicta is now based.
The name was changed to Invicta Grammar School in 1985, and two years later, all facilities were brought together on one base for the first time thanks to the acquisition of a new site on Huntsman Lane.
More recently, the school has become part of Valley Invicta Academies Trust (VIAT) and is linked with nearby Valley Park.
Mary Harris, from the school, said: “In short, names, styles, methods of teaching may change but the overall important outcome to produce well-rounded young ladies who are able to find their way in today’s modern world, has, and always will be at the heart of Invicta.”
This week students and staff will create a celebratory aerial photo by forming the letters IGS.