Schools in the southeast of England are on a winning streak. The region boasts 38 schools in the top 100 of our academic rankings and a further dozen in the top 150, while Guildford High School is Parent Power’s overall Independent School of the Year 2024.
Reading School, a state grammar school, with 1,139 pupils, all boys, a minority of whom board, is the Southeast Secondary School of the Year, topping the exam tables for state schools in the southeast and coming eighth nationally. Year 7 students have been on expeditions to build igloos in the Arctic Circle, and all pupils learn a musical instrument.
Its “secret sauce” isn’t secret at all according to its headmaster, Ashley Robson. He describes academic outcomes as a “necessary, but not sufficient measure of education” and prefers to speak about a mission to “build people of character”. Sixth-form students mentor younger pupils and the school’s collaboration with Ukrainian families, and leadership of after-school programmes for refugees have resulted in “School of Sanctuary” status.
The school promotes “mental softness” rather than resilience. Working with Laurence Halsted, an Olympian fencer, students are encouraged not to block out emotions but rather engage with them. Robson wants students to “embrace vulnerability and self-compassion” to enable a positive approach to masculinity and the development of respectful relationships with girls. The school is involved in the White Ribbon campaign to end gender-based violence.
Kindness is at the heart of the success of the Southeast Comprehensive of the Year, Roundwood Park School in Harpenden. “It is not wishy-washy, but a fierce kindness,” says Alan Henshall, head of the 1,359-strong school. “It takes energy, effort and resilience and it is what drives us. We don’t talk about exam results, but if you get the sense of community right then everything else will follow.”
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A growing sixth form and a positively competitive house system introduced in 2012 play a big role in the culture of the school, and as well as traditional sport and music clubs there are societies from chess to Warhammer.
“Everyone can do something so that you can find your tribe” Henshall says. “It has been a challenging year, but an exciting year. It feels like we have fully emerged from the pandemic and the school is a happy, vibrant place again.”
Guildford High School, a girls-only private school with 1,000 pupils, has jumped three places since last year in our annual academic league table for independent schools, a performance that has taken it to second place in our national rankings and scooped the award of Independent School of the Year. More than one in ten sixth-form girls (13 per cent of leavers) at the school, where fees are just shy of £21,000 a year, won places at Oxbridge last year and a similar percentage enrolled at medical school. The school has a therapy dog called Bria and is located next to the train station; girls commute from up to 15 miles away and there are three applications for each place in the selective senior school.
Taking the crown of Southeast Independent School of the Year is Rishi Sunak’s alma mater, Winchester College. The school, which dates from 1382 and where boarding fees are £49,152 a year, has risen 21 places up the ranks to break into the national top 30 and the regional top 10. Defined by its motto, Manners Makyth Man, it is now, under its principal, Elizabeth Stone, welcoming day girls in the sixth form. Two girls’ boarding houses are under construction.
Stone, the first female head of the school, says: “In all the schools I have been in this has the most intellectual ambition. Many schools rightly focus on academic excellence, but you notice that segues very quickly into exam results. But the distinctive character of Winchester is commitment to learning for learning’s sake.” The school has its own traditions and language. Teachers are called “dons”, it has its own version of football called “winkies”, and “Div” are lessons on a subject that is not examined or tested.
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One of the most eye-catching performances is that of Epsom College, which has seen the biggest rise in the tables in the last year, soaring 116 places from 193rd to 77th, a performance that scooped it the accolade of Southeast Independent School of the Year (highly commended).
The historian Sir Anthony Seldon, who agreed to take over the headship at the school after Emma Pattison was killed there in February, paid tribute to the work his predecessors had done, saying they had laid the foundation for the school’s success.
“Emma was a magical head teacher,” Seldon says. “My mission is to protect a community while people are still healing. If trauma hits a community that is already strong, it stands the best chance. It needs purpose, presence, love and ambition, and expectation that it does not go back on itself but keeps going forward. That is what Emma would have wanted.
“It was about being relentlessly positive and thinking ahead and having a focus on each individual child. It is very much a family school, the new staff coming in who have joined have been saying what an incredibly supportive and friendly community it is. That is one thing, second is a really strong sense of purpose and mission so everyone worked together, the pastoral and the academic support side, and the school was grounded in a culture of high expectations and optimism.”
Best secondary and grammar schools in the southeast
Regional rank / school / national rank
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1. Reading School (8)
2. Kendrick School, Reading (15)
3. Tonbridge Grammar School (16)
4. Dartford Grammar School (19)
5. Nonsuch High School for Girls, Cheam (33)
6. Dr Challoner’s Grammar School, Amersham (35=)
7. Beaconsfield High School (37)
8. Dr Challoner’s High School, Little Chalfont (38)
9. Chesham Grammar School (41)
10. Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School, Marlow (44)
Best comprehensive schools in the southeast
1. St Andrew’s RC School, Leatherhead (56)
2. Yavneh College, Borehamwood (106=)
3. St Peter’s Catholic School, Guildford (117)
4. Sandringham School, St Albans (133)
5. Salesian School, Chertsey (149=)
6. St Albans Girls’ School (154)
7. St George’s School, Harpenden (155)
8. Didcot Girls’ School (157)
9. Gordon’s School, Woking (161=)
10. Roundwood Park School, Harpenden (163)
Best private schools in the southeast
1. Guildford High School (2)
2. Tonbridge School (6)
3. Magdalen College School, Oxford (7=)
4. Brighton College (11)
5. Wycombe Abbey (17)
6. Sevenoaks School (20)
7. Royal Grammar School, Guildford (22)
8. Reigate Grammar School (25)
9. Wellington College, Crowthorne (26)
10. Winchester College (29)
11=. St Mary’s School Ascot (34=)
11=. Eton College, Windsor (34=)
13. St Albans High School for Girls (38=)
14. St Helen and St Katharine, Abingdon (47)
15. Abingdon School (53)
16. St Catherine’s, Bramley (54)
17. Oxford High School GDST (56)
18. City of London Freemen’s School, Ashtead (60)
19. Epsom College (61)
20. The Abbey School, Reading (62)
If a school does not appear on the Parent Power league table it is most likely because it did not respond to our requests for its A-level and GCSE results and the results could not be found in the public domain.
School league tables 2024
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