Itchen Grammar School thrived under Charles Thompson's twenty-one years of leadership and some of the reforms he implemented at the school were: banning the use of the cane; abolishing single-sex staff rooms; building the school swimming pool and observatory; and replacing the ‘temporary’ huts. The swimming pool was built using money raised during the 1956 Jubilee Celebrations and was the first school swimming pool in Southampton. With the huts demolished, long-awaited science laboratories were built in 1964, improving teaching as well as student satisfaction. These reforms and extensions brought Itchen Grammar School up to then-current standards.