The aluminium artwork was originally commissioned for the opening of Leamington Girls College in 1959 and remained on the building after the school became North Leamington School.

The school is now moving to a new site in Sandy Lane, but the sculpture will be not be left behind and was due to be removed yesterday (Thursday).

Assistant headteacher Rick Brown, project manager for the move, said: "It is part of the school's heritage and this is part of the idea why we are taking it with us."

The sculpture was called Three Aspects of a Girl's Education and was created by Kenilworth artist Walter Ritchie.

It shows Boudicca in her chariot, Florence Nightingale with her lamp, Marie Curie with a retort and Amy Johnson with a propellor.

Mr Brown, a technology teacher who himself started at the school in 1971, said the "impressive" piece, made of beaten, welded and rolled aluminium was intended to inspire the grammar school's young pupils.

Mr Brown added: "It shows women who have done something fundamental. In the 1960s you still had girls doing domestic science, not technology or engineering."

The school has had the artwork refurbished and will display it on the wall of its new humanities building.

It is not the only piece of the school's heritage to go on display. There will also be a jet engine suspended from the ceiling in one room, a reminder that the jet engine's inventor Sir Frank Whittle was educated at Binswood College, currently the school's sixth form site.

North Leamington resident Fay Weighell was anxious to ensure the 1950s sculpture was not forgotten in the school's move.

She said: "It is very good. It is a work of art and it is of its time but it is of our area. It was from a time when most towns would have had a girls' grammar school where famous women would have been set out as role models.

"I am sure there are many women around Leamington who would remember it."