WHAT? WHERE?

Pupils at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey.

Amesbury School is a co-ed day and boarding school in Hindhead for children aged from 9 months to 13 years, although the boarding is a small part of the school’s offering. There are just 12 beds available for pupils in Years 5-8 on an occasional and flexible basis (more on this later).

The school was founded in 1870, originally in Redhill, but increasing pupil numbers forced a move to Reigate a year later, and then to Bickley in Kent five years after that. It’s been on this on bucolic 34-acre site in Hindhead on the Surrey / Hampshire border since 1917.

Amesbury is a modern and forward-thinking school, following a progressive study programme. But this is a school that’s also proud of its history and traditions. Amesbury was founded on Christian beliefs, and there’s a regular Chapel service, although it’s a school that welcomes all faiths and none.

The main Grade II-listed school building is quite something. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1903, it’s the only purpose-built school in the UK designed by the renowned British architect. Amesbury also has ties to General Sir Bernard Montgomery who during the Second World War made his final plans for D-Day whilst staying at Amesbury with his son David, a pupil.

There are about 350 children on the register who live within a 30-minute drive of Amesbury. This closeness means it’s a tight-knit school, with a strong sense of community. The children know each other across all year groups, and relationships among parents are strong, too, with plenty on the social calendar.

Entry at Amesbury School is non-selective in the Nursery, and very mildly selective from Reception upwards. Whilst there’s no formal entrance exam, new joiners will be gently assessed to ensure they can access the curriculum.

FACILITIES

The Lutyens Building at Amesbury School, Hindhead, Surrey.

In a word, ‘wow’. Perhaps it’s because the expanse of grounds beyond the historic main Lutyens Building is so unexpected. They go on and on. It’s incredibly pretty, with more than a hint of Swallows and Amazons charm.

Amesbury has a campus-style vibe centred around the Luytens Building. It’s here you’ll find the school office, dining hall and Wellbeing Hub, plus Year 1-2 classrooms. Next door is the Bickley Building, home to the head’s study – handily positioned with fabulous playground views – and boarding houses.

Little Amesbury is nearby, a dedicated Early Years building for children in Nursery and Reception.

An impressive Performing Arts Centre, aka the PAC, sits centrally, and next to it is a large sports hall equipped with cricket nets. There’s also the award-winning Thomas Visual Arts Centre and the Austen Library – each in their own buildings – plus a separate academic block. In the library building there’s a small common room for Year 7-8 pupils.

A pretty chapel has its own charming story, typical of the character of this school. It was built entirely in the summer holidays of 1938. Wood panelling on the walls was added later, a gift from General Montgomery and his son David, and completed in 1942. Monty’s royal connections resulted in King George VI giving royal consent for the Amesbury Chapel Choir to wear scarlet cassocks, which continues today.

There are sports fields galore including astro pitches and a cricket square. The Cricket Pavilion is a charming timber structure facing the pitches, and soon to be spruced up. Beyond the fields there’s a Forest School which serves all pupils’ outdoor learning from age 2-13 including a bespoke programme called the Amesbury Award, a Duke of Edinburgh light.

Oh, and there’s no shortage of tennis courts, either – both grass and hard-court – 7 in total.

SPORT

A pupil playing tennis at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey.

The reason for all those tennis courts? Simply put, tennis is huge at Amesbury. It’s been said you can’t walk across the school grounds without being hit by a tennis ball. And while I managed to make it unscathed, there was a lot of tennis going on.

The Tennis Academy has seven professional coaches teaching across the school, and Amesbury holds the accolade of being Surrey’s top Lawn Tennis Association primary school in 2024. British professional Jodie Burrage is a former student – and there are many other tennis talents on the circuit including a current student who’s apparently one to watch.

It’s not entirely about the tennis though, and with a former professional cricketer as headmaster, it’d seem a little strange if cricket didn’t get some attention. And it does, but it’s not the only other sport on offer here.

All sport is compulsory, and all pupils take part in fixtures throughout the year – football, rugby, hockey, cross country, cricket, swimming and athletics for boys, netball, hockey, cross country, cricket, athletics and swimming for girls. It’s a sport-for-all philosophy, so every child will get game time, regardless of ability.

The Every Child Matters ideal aims to give all children the chance to try out and experience a broad range for sports so they can find the ones they love.

THE ARTS

Students doing dance at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey.

While sport is undoubtedly a strength at Amesbury, it’s the arts that get top billing. There’s a very creative vibe here – hardly surprising when you consider the inspirational facilities.

The Thomas Visual Arts Centre (built about a decade ago) is quite the architectural masterpiece, designed with a large vaulted-ceiling and huge angled windows which flood the studio with light. If this doesn’t bring out the budding artist in a child, I’m not sure anything will. It’s an inspirational space – and children try their hand at drawing, painting, printing, sculpture, textiles and ceramics. The school even has potter to guide the children in their ceramics and pottery creativity.

Enthusiasm for the performing arts is no less keen. And dance and music are also highly regarded. The school is justly proud of its scholarship successes across the performing arts.

From Reception, children have 2.5 hours a week of music, drama and dance – taught in a carousel format. Big on the Amesbury calendar are the annual dance and drama shows. There are three choirs: the Junior choir, Senior Choir and the audition-only Chapel Choir.

LITTLIES

Pupils at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey.

Little Amesbury is in demand with waiting lists of up to 18 months. Given that children can start from the age of nine months, you might want to get your impending sprog on the waiting list the minute those two lines appear on the pregnancy test. Just saying!

Little Amesbury is made up of Pre Nursery, Nursery and Reception. They’re all housed in their own purpose-built classrooms which flow to lovely outdoor spaces.

Within Little Amesbury, there’s Baby Amesbury which takes children from nine-months to age two. Sessions run from 8am – 6pm daily, 49 weeks a year.

At two, children go into Pre Nursery, and then in the term after their third birthday into Nursery. Most Little Amesbury children will carry on into Reception and stay on through the school.

Children get weekly specialist teaching in dance, tennis, French, forest school and music. They’ll also learn Makaton, a communication programme that uses symbols, signs and speech to communicate.

ACADEMICS

Pupils at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey.

For a school that’s non-selective, children at Amesbury do particularly well academically. The school has a reputation for bringing out the best in pupils – and the list of onward schools bears that out. A host of scholarships are also dished out with reassuring regularity.

The school’s success is down to a combination of factors, not least a robust academic programme that tracks each child’s progress. So, if a child needs support, they get it early on. And, if they’re coasting – they can be challenged.

The school follows the Pre-Senior Baccalaureate (PSB) – a programme of study that focuses on the development of skills like communication, collaboration, leadership and independence. Pupils also learn that success comes in many forms and is equally important across all subjects including art, drama, music and sport. This fits nicely with the Amesbury ethos that education is not one-size-fits-all.

Amesbury School was an early adopter of digital learning, and it’s now fully embedded across the curriculum. The school is a Microsoft Showcase School – one of only a handful of schools to be accredited in Surrey. In Year 5 all children are issued with a school laptop.

Children are taught by their classroom teachers in Years 1 to 3, with specialists in subjects like PE, music, dance and French. The number of specialists increases as pupils move up the school, and by Year 4, all learning is specialist taught. Class sizes are small, with children grouped in small sets by ability.

About 35 per cent of pupils go to senior school in Year 6 (on average) – with the likes of RGS Guildford, Guildford High, St Catherine’s Bramley, Prior’s Field and Churchers among the most common destinations.

Those who stay to Year 8 typically go schools like Bryanston, Charterhouse, Cranleigh, Lord Wandsworth College, Wellington College, Seaford College and Sherborne.

PASTORAL CARE

Drone footage of Amesbury School, Hindhead, Surrey.

You don’t have to spend long at Amesbury to know this is a school with warmth and a genuine sense of happiness. Wellbeing is high on the agenda – and the school does it brilliantly. There’s a relaxed, down-to-earth and happy vibe.

The idyllic, storybook setting no doubt helps. But it’s more than that. Wellbeing and pastoral support are deeply embedded across all parts of school life at Amesbury. Strong communication and relationships with parents are important, putting children at the centre of the everything.

There’s a strong pastoral structure in place led by dedicated Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing. A clinical psychologist, Dr Smiley (yes, that’s his real name) is also available every Friday – for pupils, parents and staff. Dr Smiley offers one-to-one sessions and hosts workshops and conducts pastoral talks.

The Wellbeing Hub – at heart of the school – is a lovely bright and welcoming space where children can visit during breaktimes. It leads out to The Hub Garden, a tranquil outdoor space which is also home to a small herd of guinea pigs (there’s four).

As you’d expect, a formal tracking system is in place to monitor each child pastorally, and this also links into the academic tracking system. There’s a big emphasis, too, on learning support with 34% of pupils accessing some form of support, mostly low-level needs like mild dyslexia.

A peer mentoring programme is also in place across the school.

BOARDING

Amesbury offers children in Years 5 to 8 the opportunity to board on an occasional and flexible basis. There are just 12 beds in the boarding house – upstairs at Bickley House – so the school is not an option for those looking for regular boarding. The aim here is to help children prepare for future boarding schools, to foster independence, develop responsibility and above all have fun. When children board, a programme of fun activities is available from board games and Nerf gun wars to jewellery making and pamper nights.

THE HEAD

Gavin Franklin, head at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey, with his wife Claire.

Gavin Franklin has been the head at Amesbury School since August 2023 coming from Wellesley House School in Broadstairs, Kent where he was head for six years. Before that he was at Wellington College for almost nine years as a house master and English teacher.

Charming, chatty and down-to-earth, he tells me he ‘worked’ in cricket before his career in education. That’s his humble way of saying he’s a former professional cricketer, who later went on to become a performance manager at Surrey County Cricket Club.

Gavin is passionate about individual learning, strongly believing that education is not one-size-fits-all. He says Amesbury is a totally authentic school and is keen to promote individuality in each pupil. He wants to see each child be the best and most genuine versions of themselves they can be. Since coming to Amesbury, he’s brought a renewed focus to wellbeing and pastoral care – and he’s committed to maintaining Amesbury’s warm and authentic vibe.

Born in Wolverhampton, he was educated at Malvern College, and then Durham University where he met his now wife, Claire. They have two boys aged 10 and 15. The youngest is a pupil at Amesbury School.

QUIRKS

The little herd of guinea pigs – Peanut, Patch, Sky and Marshmallow – are hugely popular at Amesbury. I’ve been to plenty of schools with therapy dogs. Therapy guinea pigs? No so much!

WRAP AROUND CARE

Pupils at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey.

Breakfast club is available every morning from 7.30am until school registration at 8.15am. Cost is £5 with or without breakfast.

After-school care is available until 6pm, charged at £3.75 per half hour for regular bookings. High tea is at 4.30pm.

There’s also an extensive co-curricular programme for children in Reception to Year 8. Sessions happen before, during and after school, and there’s everything from chess, coding and Lego club to pottery, flute and judo.

ISI REPORT

The most recent ISI (Independent Schools Inspectorate) full inspection report was in 2017 which found quality of the pupils’ academic and other achievements to be ‘excellent’. Read that report here. A compliance inspection took place in July 2022 – read that report here.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

No mobile phones are permitted at school.

TRANSPORT

Bus services currently run on routes from Farnham, Guildford, Petersfield, Godalming an Haslemere.

FEES

From September 2024, fees per term are £4,500 in Reception; £4,545 in Year 1-2; £6,015 in Year 3; £6,410 in Year 4; and £6,945 in Years 5-8. There’s a 5% sibling discount for a second child in the same family and a 10% discount for the third and any subsequent children.

WORD ON THE GROUND

Pupils at Amesbury School, Hindhead, Surrey.

There’s a lot to love about Amesbury – from the wholesome, rural setting to the outstanding results. Children are well-supported academically, but not hothoused. Amesbury is praised for its on-point pastoral care and the nurturing environment which leads to a happy and successful learning experience.

The school offers a big choice of sports and extracurricular activities – which parents also see as a bonus. The performing arts offering is also highly praised.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

A pupil in the playground at Amesbury School in Hindhead, Surrey.

Good for: Families looking for a down-to-earth school with a great all-rounder offering and excellent academic results. It’s also a great option for children with a love of tennis, the performing arts and lots of alternative activities at break times.

Not for: Those who require full-time boarding or parents who prefer a more ‘starchy’ approach to schooling. Amesbury has a wonderfully inclusive ‘have-a-go’ ethos, so children need to be up for that.

Dare to disagree? Visit the school and decide for yourself. Book an individual tour here.

Amesbury School, Hazel Grove, Hindhead, Surrey, GU26 6BL. Tel: 01428 604322

Amesbury School, Hindhead

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