The school suffered particularly badly from the underfunding of English state education in the 1980s and early 1990s under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Some of the Foreign Language Department and some parts of the English and Science Departments were based in temporary Portakabin classrooms on the east of the site. The largest of these, "the battleship" erected in the late 1980s was only replaced by a permanent building almost a decade later. Starting in the late 1980s, new language, mathematics and sixth form blocks were built to complement the existing science, music, library/cafeteria buildings and sports hall.