WHAT? WHERE?

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

Hurtwood House is billed as the ‘most exciting school in England’, and you know what? I think that nails it.

This Sixth Form college sits deep in the Surrey Hills – about 20 minutes from Dorking and 10 from Cranleigh. It’s about as far from the traditional English boarding school as you can get – aside from the fact it’s set in acres of stunning grounds and that the main school building and the four main boarding houses are all manor houses.

The arts are massive here. Alumni include Emily Blunt, Hans Zimmer, Emily Beecham, Jack Huston, Leah Wood (the list goes on). But the academics are also very strong thanks in part to a one-to-one tutor programme for every pupil. (More on that later.) Not all students study arts A Levels – for many it’s the extra-curricular arts programme that attracts them.

There are 360 pupils – and all but about 50 board full-time. About three-quarters are from the UK and the rest are international students. A handful are local.

HISTORY

A boarding house at Hurtwood House school in Surrey.

The school is family-owned – and still relatively young – established in 1970 by Richard Jackson who left a successful career at a West End advertising agency to open the school with just a small number of students. His own traditional independent education experience wasn’t cherished (he describes it as ‘cold and inhospitable’), and he wanted this to be different. Safe to say that he’s achieved that, and more than 50 years later it’s thriving. Richard still lives on site, but these days his son Cosmo is the school’s head, with wife Tina and son Harvey also involved in the family business.

Hurtwood House is, and has always been, forward thinking and hugely innovative. Staff and pupils are on a first-name basis. There are no uniforms, no assemblies, no chapel and no prefect system. As a Sixth Form college, it’s an ideal bridge from school to university. There’s an undeniable buzz around the school. And although I visited on the day of one of the big annual shows, I suspect this buzz is normal. I saw some of the show, the annual Gig of Glory, and the level of talent is phenomenal. It gives you goosebumps.

While you might think it is a school that attracts many aspiring stars-of-tomorrow – it also appears to be rather down-to-earth. Maybe that’s because students here all work incredibly hard. There’s a lot going on all the time and alongside the abundance of creativity, students are also concentrated on their academic studies with a laser-sharp focus.

FACILITIES

Hurtwood House school in Surrey. — The ampitheatre at Hurtwood House.

The main school site – Hurtwood House – is the heart of this school. There’s everything you’d expect to find… and more. Hurtwood House is a glorious Edwardian manor house with vast and spectacular views out over the Surrey Hills. An extension to this building, opening in summer 2024, will house a new medical centre, common room and classrooms.

It’s a sloped and wooded 200-acre site, and many of the school’s buildings are tucked away, not in direct view. A large multi-storey dining hall – where all pupils have all meals – sits just down the hill from the manor house. It opens out to lovely outdoor terrace with a retractable roof. Upstairs there are classrooms, and dance studios.

Elsewhere you’ll find impressively kitted-out theatre, music studios, music tech suite, recording studios, practice rooms and edit studios. There’s an arts building which houses art and textile studios plus photography suites. In other buildings you’ll find the classrooms, including three science labs.

While the facilities are undoubtedly something else – and the level of tech, kit and equipment is comparable to any professional theatre or film production studio – it’s the teaching staff, and their level of experience that puts Hurtwood House on a different level. Many have worked, or are still working in the West End.

Construction is set to begin on a new building which will include a gym, recording studio and common room. It’s expected to be finished in 2025.

The 1987 storms took out enough trees to allow for the creation of tennis courts, and there’s a sports field. While sport is not the school’s raison d’etre, it’s still highly valued. On the day of my visit pupils were on the tennis courts.

THE ARTS

PERFORMING ARTS

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

Hurtwood House is ALL about the arts – the visual arts and the performing arts. Alongside A Level arts subjects, there are umpteen extra curricular activities.

There are more concerts, recitals, poetry readings, musicals and plays going on at Hurtwood House than you could shake a conductor’s baton at – more than 40 throughout the year. The biggie is the annual Christmas musical, a £100k production with a cast of around 80 pupils who perform for 10 nights with a full West End band, and professional musical directors, choreographers and lighting designers. In 2024, it’s The Witches of Eastwick. Theatre scouts and talent agents are usually in attendance.

There’s also the Gig of Glory, the annual rock concert, which I was lucky enough to see. It’s impressive stuff.

But it’s not all about those who take centre stage. The Hurtwood Film Academy is like a production company within the school, where students train in all aspects of film production, working alongside professional filmmakers. They’ll take part in workshops and masterclasses throughout the year, learning to shoot on 16mm film. The academy is open to gifted students, who are selected after an informal interview process.

DANCE

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

About 15 students do A Level dance, but almost 80 are involved in dance on various levels. Typical dance styles are offered, like tap, contemporary, jazz, street dance, ballet and commercial dance. For those who can’t get enough of the groove, there’s a Hurtwood Dance Pass, which allows students to attend as many dance classes as they would like to for an entire term. And for those who are really serious about dancing, there’s the Hurtwood Dance Company, with selective entry by audition.

MUSIC

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

More than 100 Hurtwood students take individual music lessons every week in everything from drums, piano and guitar to flute, saxophone violin, trumpet and trombone. For singers, lessons are taught in everything from opera to rock. And for those who write their own songs and music, there are lessons for composition and performance.

VISUAL ARTS

Artwork by students at Hurtwood House school in Surrey.

Art and design, textiles and photography is also very strong. Almost all of the students who study art and design go on to specialise in the subject at Art College. As well as frequent trips to London galleries, there’s usually a five-day residential trip to overseas destinations such as Venice, New York or Chicago. A major exhibition is held each year to showcase students’ work.

SPORT

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

While sport may be somewhat in the shadow of the arts, there’s still plenty on offer here for sporty types. Physical Education is not offered as an A Level subject, so all sport is part of the extra curricular programme. Hurtwood House has a wide offering that includes football (girls football is growing in popularity), hockey, cricket, netball and volleyball. Also on the programme are sports and activities like pole fitness, kick boxing, golf, basketball and boxercise. And the bucolic location means there’s plenty of opportunity for walking, hiking and mountain biking.

The school fields teams in rugby, cricket, football, tennis and netball, playing regular fixtures against other local independent schools. A source of great pride was a recent win by the girls’ football team against Charterhouse. They celebrated with a pizza party.

ACADEMICS

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

The school offers only A Level subjects, (no BTECs), alongside the option to do an EPQ. About one third of pupils take this up.

About half of all students choose media studies as one of their A Levels, usually alongside more traditional subjects like business, sciences or humanities. Drama and theatre studies is the next most popular A Level subject, followed by psychology, maths, English literature, business, sociology history, and economics.

There’s an academic enrichment programme called Enigma which offers courses to enhance academic achievement – life skills like first aid, cookery and driving test theory, but also creative pursuits like animation, life drawing, wine appreciation and digital photography. The Enigma programme also includes clubs like the Coding Club, Politics Society, Investor Trading Challenge and Economics and Business Film Society.

The Enigma programme also incorporates a Friday speakers’ programme which has included topics such as “Addiction, rejection, redemption – A woman’s journey from public school to prison” ; “Living with HIV”; “Government and Politics”; “Pornography: An open discussion”, as well as topics like “Team buiding” and talks from theatre companies.

The school’s one-to-one tutor programme means that each student has an individual tutor – a sort of ‘academic parent’- to help keep things on track. Each week effort and academic standards are assessed and graded, so any issues that may arise are quickly nipped in the bud.

THE RESULTS

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

It’s clearly working very well. Students do exceptionally well academically, and the excellent results are achieved as much in the traditional academic subjects like maths, science, history and English as they are in the creative subjects. In 2023, 52.5% of students achieved A*-A; 82.5% achieved A*-B and 96% achieved A*-C.

Students leave Hurtwood House to go to some of the most prestigious universities in not just the UK, but the world. The school is instrumental in every step of the application process, helping each student work out which direction their future will take – be it art or drama schools, music conservatoires or university.

In 2023, students accepted a wide range of higher education offers – including University College London, LSE, the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Durham, Leeds, Cardiff, Loughborough, Manchester, Nottingham, Surrey, Sussex and Newcastle. Several pupils went on to the Met Film School, Leeds Conservatoire, the University of the Arts in London, Urdang, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Berklee College of Music, Parsons Paris and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. In recent years, students have also gone on to RADA, the New York Film School, and Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Students went on to study courses ranging from drama, fine art, illustration, musical theatre and contemporary dance to computer science, biochemistry, philosophy and theology, psychology, international business, mathematics, history and politics and American literature and creative writing.

PASTORAL CARE

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

While the school’s results speak for themselves, Hurtwood House is no academic hothouse. The school’s strong belief in the importance of personal development means that creativity and originality are also highly valued.

It’s an incredibly tight knit community, where students and teachers co-exist across all areas of school life – and I’d say this is central to the excellent pastoral care that’s at Hurtwood House. Students are treated like adults and are allowed freedoms and independence within set boundaries.

But there’s also a more formal multi-layered pastoral system in place that includes boarding house parents, one-one-one personal tutors, heads of department, counsellors, doctors and a medical team. Each pupil also has an individual welfare plan.

BOARDING

A boarding house at Hurtwood House school in Surrey. — Ewhurst Place, one of the boarding houses at Hurtwood House.

There are six main boarding houses: Hurtwood House and the Lodge, which are on the main campus site, and then Peaslake House, Ewhurst Place, Cornhill Manor and Beatrice Webb House – all remote. Each is a stunning historical home set in beautiful grounds and gardens. Most have a gym, and all have shared social spaces and study rooms, plus kitchen facilities – although all meals are eaten in the dining hall on the main school site.

All boarding houses are mixed gender – with separate rooms for boys and girls (obvs!) – and house from 50 to almost 70 students each. Rooms are a mix of single bedrooms and shared – mostly with a shared bathroom (except Cornhill where each room has an ensuite bathroom).

THE HEAD

Richard, Cosmo and Harvey Jackson at Hurtwood House in Surrey. — Richard, Cosmo and Harvey Jackson.

Cosmo Jackson, son of the founder Richard Jackson, has been involved at Hurtwood House for close to 35 years. As a teenager he was put to work in the maintenance department and following his education at Charterhouse School and reading Economics at Bristol University he moved to teaching. He has been headteacher for the last 10 years or so.

Charming and deeply passionate about education, Cosmo believes the Sixth Form can be as exciting and stimulating as university. He has a love for the arts, and values it highly – not to the exclusion of maths, science or English, but equally.

The arts, he says, teach students to become resourceful and they learn valuable people skills that will take them through life.

Cosmo’s wife Tina is head of admissions, and their son Harvey has also recently joined Hurtwood House.

QUIRKS

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

This school is the epitome of quirk. It’s a place where informality prevails (but not at the exclusion of high standards) and there’s a warm, welcoming and big family feel. Hurtwood House is refreshingly different and mighty proud of it, too.

ISI REPORT

Read the most recent ISI inspection was in September 2022. Read the full report here.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

Students at Hurtwood House are treated like responsible adults therefore there is no policy to prevent the use of mobile phones. However, there’s an expectation that students will be respectful and not take calls or use their phones during lessons.

TRANSPORT

Students are bussed to and from their boarding houses and main Hurtwood House campus each day.

FEES

From September 2023, boarding fees are £17,409 per term and for day students it’s £11,606 per term.

WORD ON THE GROUND

Students at Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

For those with arty children, Hurtwood House is a no-brainer. One parent said that if your child was into any aspect of the arts, there was no better school. The fact that academics are strong is also seen as a major plus – it’s not a case of arts or academic. Here, students get both. As a school that teaches only Sixth Form, Hurtwood House has a reputation for attracting excellent teaching staff who were praised for their commitment and devotion to pupils and high-calibre expertise.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

Hurtwood House School, near Dorking, Surrey.

Good for: Anyone interested in the performing arts, making music and anything to do with media will be in heaven here. There’s a work-hard, play-hard ethos – so those with lots of enthusiasm, energy and a strong work ethic with thrive. And for those looking for more independence and a less formal educational setting, it’s ideal. It’s an excellent stepping stone from school to university, and for many students their first experience of boarding.

Not for: Coasters and those looking for a quiet life need not apply – Hurtwood House is fast-paced and standards are high. If you’re looking for a traditional, formal boarding school, this probably isn’t for you either.

Dare to disagree? There are no open days at Hurtwood House. Instead book a private tour.

Hurtwood House, 1 Radnor Lane, Dorking RH5 6NU. Tel: 01483 279 000

Hurtwood House, Dorking

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