Brentford School for Girls is very proud of its tradition as a single sex comprehensive school with a modern outlook.

The school has 850 pupils, 56 teachers and 90 staff in total. The school was founded in 1968 and the present Headteacher, Ms Susan Higgins, joined the school in September 2000.

"We want to equip girls to live in the world as independent women, confidently meeting the challenges of the 21st century," she told the Times.

"Girls come from a whole range of different backgrounds and represent a wide variety of different skills, talents and abilities. Our aim is to provide quality education for all girls. We want to ensure each pupil reaches the highest academic standards of which she is capable in a learning environment that is caring, well ordered and friendly.

"The school's success in helping all pupils to make very good progress is reflected in the extremely high value-added measures it achieves each year.

"We also encourage achievement in a range of activities including Music, Sport, Art, Active Citizenship, Dance and Drama. The school is making final plans to become an Arts College with a particular emphasis on Media Arts.

"This special emphasis will give us the opportunity to develop our creative work even further. The school's artwork is frequently exhibited in galleries - at the ICA Gallery, Watermans and the British Museum. This year the school's production was a premier of Patrick Marber's play "The Musicians" produced in conjunction with the National Theatre."

Facilities for multi media work have been hugely enhanced with the opening on site this month of the Brentford City Learning Centre. Pupils have had an opportunity already to make use of the state of the art equipment. There are at least 200 Adult Education users who currently follow programmes at the school each week and they will also benefit from the City Learning Centre.

"Our ethos promotes respect, co-operation and pupil responsibility for fulfiling our high expectations of work and behaviour," continued Ms Higgins.

"Girls in the school are encouraged to take on positions of responsibility: we have a team of Year 11 girls who help supervise lunchtimes; we have library monitors and a very impressive team of peer mentors. These young women are especially trained to offer support with a range of issues to younger students.

"They have led sessions in school on effective learning and safe use of the internet and have also made links in local primary schools. They have won a prestigious Prince's Trust award for their work and have spent that on developing a comfortable room in school as their base.

"The multi-cultural, multi-faith aspect of the school is a real strength.

"At the last count 46 languages were represented in the school and 42 different countries of origin in the pupil population. The school actively promotes anti-racism and equal opportunities and celebrates its rich cultural mix through events like International Evening an exciting programme of poetry, music, drama and dance.

"Through the RE and Citizenship programme pupils gain an informed understanding of different customs, beliefs and religions.

"The school has a committed team of well-qualified, talented and dedicated teachers. They work hard and creatively to provide each individual pupil with the support and challenge necessary to succeed. As teachers we are all enthusiastic about developing our professional skills and as a school community we are committed to improvement in all aspects.

"This year we were recognised by the DfES in its list of the 100 most improved schools in the country for our examination results and we are delighted by the improvements we have achieved."