Lancing College, West Sussex
Lancing is a public boarding school for children aged 13 to 18 in West Sussex. Set within the South Downs National Park, it offers an open-air theatre, a state-of-the-art music school, an equestrian centre and even the tallest school chapel in the world. As impressive as its facilities, though, are its alumni: Evelyn Waugh, Sir David Hare and Lord (Stephen) Green to name but a few. Nowadays, many students at the college – where fees start from £12,602 – come from its sister preparatory schools in Hove and Worthing. Also arriving this month is a new headteacher, Dr Scott Crawford, who will replace Dominic Oliver after 11 years. Dr Crawford, who was previously deputy headteacher at Magdalen College School in Oxford, says he is ‘thrilled to join a school that embraces both tradition and modernity’.
Michaela Community School, London
Even parents who live outside Michaela’s catchment area in Wembley, north-west London, will have likely heard about its reputation as the ‘strictest school in -Britain’. Established in a converted office block in 2014, its co-founder and headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh (pictured) has prided herself on enforcing discipline and tradition over the past 11 years. And it seems to have paid off. The free school’s last Progress 8 score, a government measure comparing schools’ pupil performance at GCSE to the national average, ranked Michaela as the best school in the UK. More than a third of its pupils secured the equivalent of an A or A* in at least five GCSE subjects this summer, while 82 per cent of school-leavers have gone on to elite Russell Group universities in previous years.
Repton School, Derbyshire
There remains a sense of 16th-century majesty about Repton, which was founded in 1557 as the dying wish of knight and MP Sir John Port. There are 12 tennis courts, a historic cricket pavilion and an indoor swimming pool that was used as a training ground for Olympic gold medallist Adam Peaty. Fans of the lesser-played Eton Fives are also in luck: there’s a refurbished court devoted to the handball game. Little wonder, then, that over the past five centuries famous faces have flocked to the school, unfazed by the term fees, which start from £13,555. Old Reptonians include Christopher Isherwood, Jeremy Clarkson and Roald Dahl, whose time at the school sampling new Cadbury chocolate inspired his classic children’s book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Glenalmond College, Perth
At the gateway to the Scottish Highlands in Perth and Kinross sits Glenalmond College, a co-educational school for pupils aged 12 to 18. Founded by four-time prime minister W.E. Gladstone in 1847, the school now offers day and boarding to 350 students, with term fees starting from £6,830. Its location gives students the perfect opportunities to explore mountains, lochs and forests as part of a renowned programme of outdoor education. They also have access to the Moncrieff Centre, a licensed sixth-form club where pupils can attend three formal balls each year. Herself an intrepid explorer who recently hiked the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, the school’s principal Lucy Elphinstone says Glenalmond provides a ‘genuinely creative curriculum’, both ‘for the academic child [and] the entrepreneurial dyslexic’.
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