The Spectator

School portraits | 16 March 2017

<em>Snapshots of four notable schools</em>

Brighton College

 
As a mixed independent school with pupils aged 3–18, Brighton College covers the full spectrum of students. With such a wide remit, you might expect areas where it falls down, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In 2016, every GCSE exam sat (all 2,082 of them), was passed, with A* the most common grade.

The school says it is living proof that ‘co-education works’. Brighton girls do better in their exams than those at local single-sex schools. Sports are a big draw, too: Brighton is one of Britain’s top six schools for rugby with a rugby scholarship and, more surprisingly, a girls’ cricket scholarship.

The unofficial motto of Brighton’s prep school is ‘Be Good. Be Kind. Be Honest. Be the Best You’, and the school is very proud of its community spirit. Pastoral care is a priority, and the house system and teams of tutors are set up to ensure that all the children are as happy as they possibly can be.

Kensington Prep

 
The girls of Kensington Prep are, as Miss Jean Brodie might say, ‘the crème de la crème’ — though of London, not Edinburgh. This independent junior school for girls in Parsons Green has a high reputation as a ‘feeder’ for schools such as St Paul’s, Wycombe Abbey, Godolphin and Latymer and many London day schools.

In 1873 it was the first school opened by the Girls’ Day School Trust, which now runs another 25. The intention was to create an academic centre for girls, but academic success is not the sole aim.

It has a new £2.7 million centre called ‘Creating Spaces for Growing Minds’, with a multimedia recording studio and an eco-greenhouse among the facilities. Pupils have now launched their own radio station — one more interest on top of 30-plus extracurricular activities already offered.

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