Information for those interested in working at the school

With over 430 boarders and numbers rising, there are very few independent or state schools with a greater number of boarders and we are the second largest state boarding school in the UK. When our expansion is complete we shall be around 1,080 on roll including around 500 boarders.

Our non-boarding places are very heavily oversubscribed - for September 2011 we had 4 applications per place for Year 3 and 6 applications per place for Year 7.

Our boarding houses have all been refurbished and are now being extended.

We have constructed ground floor extensions, providing an extra Common Room and an ICT room with 27 workstations, to Albert and Elizabeth House (2007), Gloucester House (2008), Alexandra and Kent House (2010) and Cornwall House (2011); each at a cost of almost half a million pounds. The ground floor extension to Edinburgh House will be completed by Summer 2012, meaning that all seven secondary houses will have been enlarged within six years.

We have also recently added two-storey boarding annexes which each contain 21 study bedrooms with en-suite shower rooms for Sixth Form boarders as well as a two-bedroom staff flat to Kent and Alexandra Houses. There are plans for two more Sixth Form annexes providing another 42 study bedrooms with en-suite shower rooms. Further Sixth Form boarding accommodation is available in Gatton Hall.

We opened our own Sixth Form in September 2010

Obtaining permission to open a new Sixth Form was a long, complex process but we finally obtained official approval from Surrey in November 2009. September 2010 saw the opening of the Bernard Sunley Sixth Form Centre, an outstanding facility created from a small former boarding house.

Our first Lower Sixth recruited thirty-five pupils who started in September 2010.  September 2011 saw a huge jump to eighty-two Lower Sixth pupils studying twenty-one subjects at A level or BTEC National. The most popular subjects are Maths (42 pupils), Business BTEC (37), Biology (32), Chemistry (22), Psychology (22), ICT (19) and Physics (17). The number of subjects will rise to twenty-four in September 2012 when we plan to have a hundred and ten pupils in the Lower Sixth.

Our ultimate plan is a Sixth Form of 215 pupils including 110 in the Lower Sixth and 115 boarders.

Our GCSE Results continue to rise

The percentage achieving five GCSEs has risen from 69% in 2005 to 93% in 2011.

The percentage achieving five GCSEs including English and Maths has risen from 37% in 2005 to 63% in 2011.

The percentage of Year 11 pupils achieving at least three GCSEs at A / A* has risen from 19% in 2008 (the first year we calculated this measure) to 43% in 2011.

The percentage of all GCSEs at grades A* and A as a percentage of all GCSE results has risen from 11% in 2008 to 29% in 2011.

We have some plans for other further development

This is a terrible understatement ! We have undergone massive development of teaching, boarding, sports and other facilities including those for Dance, Music and Drama over the last few years.

In addition, two Science laboratories were totally refurbished during the Summer of 2008. A new teaching block with two new Science Laboratories, two new general purpose classrooms and a large Dance Studio opened in June 2009 at a cost of £1.8m. A floodlit Astroturf pitch for hockey, three floodlit netball courts and a tartan athletics facility were also completed that Summer at a cost of £650k. A second Art classroom was also created and the Junior and Secondary Libraries moved into new premises.
During 2009-10 we refurbished an annexe to Gatton Hall in order to create 11 bed-sitters with en-suite facilities for staff and then we created a Sixth Form Centre out of a small former boarding house. An "outdoor gymnasium" was opened in September 2010.

During 2010-11 the Dining Hall and kitchens underwent a major programme of refurbishment and enlargement, allowing us to serve up to one thousand lunches an hour. Six extra temporary classrooms were brought in during Summer 2011 to allow us to cope with rising pupil numbers.

We are part-way through building a new Stable Block and Outdoor Riding School to replace existing old facilities.

At some point we plan to level a large area near the Chapel in order to create more grass pitches and there are plans for a Tennis Centre and a Fitness Centre.

Boarding Structure

We have a co-educational Primary House - Rank-Weston - with a capacity of 60 beds.

Albert and Edinburgh Houses are Lower Secondary Boys (Years 7 - 9). Gloucester House is for Upper Secondary Boys (Years 9 - 11) and Kent House covers the same age range as well as having 21 study bedrooms for Sixth Form boarders.

Elizabeth House is for Lower Secondary Girls (Year 7 - 9). Cornwall House is for Upper Secondary Girls (Years 9 - 11) and Alexandra House covers the same age range as well as having 21 study bedrooms for Sixth Form boarders.

Gatton Hall accommodates up to 45 Sixth Form students with boys and girls on different floors.

Children of staff

We currently have 50+ staff children on roll. All staff who work here, regardless of their status, are entitled to a 33% discount on the fees for boarding or Flexi Boarding / Day Boarding.

Further questions?

Please have a look around the rest of our website if you have not already done so. It is constantly being updated and improved, but it does give an indication of what sort of school we are.

There is also the facility to download an application form, fill it in and submit as an e-mail attachment - you may/should be interested to know that all teachers appointed in the last five years applied electronically!

Please also note that our job adverts do not have a closing date. We believe that people who are really interested in working in this unique School will request information and then apply at once. and we process applications as soon as they are received.