[5] In 1939, after the outbreak of the Second World War, the school building was taken over by the Civil Defence and the pupils were evacuated to Canterbury, moving in 1940 to Pontypridd then Porthcawl in South Wales.

From 1941 an increasing number of pupils began to return to live in Rochester, and in 1942 the school was reopened, although parts of the building remained occupied by the Civil Defence until mid-1944.

Facilities now include a sixth-form centre, a newly built and hi-tech teaching and training suite named after one of the school's famous ex-students, Evelyn Dunbar.

[2] The school's subjects include Anthropology, Art, Business Studies, Computing, Design and Technology, Drama, Economics, Film Studies, English, Geography, History, IT, Mathematics, Modern Languages (French, German, Japanese and Spanish), RS, PE, German, Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science and Physics), Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Drama, Music, Sociology, and PSHE.

[citation needed] The sixth-form intake fell from 147 in 2019 to 105 in 2020, with only 46% of the school's Year 11 girls opting to stay on rather than to transfer to another sixth form.

This has been changed in the last few years and the common room is now home to a very large silent study hall, the Independent Learning Centre (ILC).

The ILC has many computers and desks for students to use during study periods, and a teacher is present during lesson times to ensure the room stays silent.

The school has many girls and a few boys (in the sixth form) who represent the county, and sometimes the country, in a range of sports, including football, skiing, sailing, netball and athletics.

[citation needed] Lisa Butler (born 1962) makeup artistIn April 2016 the chief executive officer of the Thinking Schools Academy Trust, to which RGS belongs,[19] and former headteacher Denise Shepherd were suspended due to allegations of snooping on staff emails, bullying staff and doctoring parts of an external inspection report.

"[22] In July 2017 RGS received national media coverage when it was disclosed that the History Department, when teaching pupils about the 19th-century African slave trade, had provided a worksheet that invited Year 8 pupils to take part in a fictional slave auction, using stereotypical negative qualities about African people; the head of the History Department later apologised on behalf of the school.