WHAT? WHERE?

A boarding and day school for girls aged from 4 to 18 years, Badminton School‘s careful balance of intellectual firepower with common courtesy and support certainly stands its girls out from the crowd. Named after Badminton House in Clifton where the school was founded in 1858 (and formerly known as Miss Bartlett’s School for Young Ladies!), it has been located at its current site in Westbury-on-Trym in north Bristol, since 1924.

From the beginning the school developed a broad curriculum and extracurricular activities, including sport, were encouraged (the founders wanted to offer girls everything their brothers enjoyed). Girls have played cricket since 1858, science has always been strong and the school has a long history of international boarders.

While tucked away not far from the centre of bustling Bristol, the campus is an oasis of calm. It has the feel of a country school, with glorious buildings and gardens, but has the benefits of a thriving city on its doorstep.

Currently there are 550 girls on the roll.

Notable alumni include Iris Murdoch, Rosamund Pike, Phyllida Law, Polly Toynbee and HRH Princess Haya bint Al Hussein of Jordan.

FACILITIES

The rather lovely main school building sits in prime position in the middle of the campus, with a Prep School, Sixth Form Centre, Creative Art Centre, Drama Studio, Science Block, two purpose-built music blocks, boarding houses, playing fields, a huge astro turf and the Sports Centre dotted around. There are plenty of places to disappear into for some down time, and the green (and very well manicured) lawns offers a calm and relaxed atmosphere for the girls.

The Peace Memorial Hall is home to assemblies, plays and concerts and there are two libraries – one a more formal space and the other a cosy snug where girls can cuddle up on bean bags and lose themselves in the shelves of fiction. The school has its own pool (formerly a sheep dip) and, making the best use of space, the Year 7 Common Room is actually two wooden hobbit huts in the grounds.

The creative arts are huge here – at the moment the old sports hall is home to the drama department, where play rehearsals, clubs and LAMDA lessons take place. Year 8 girls take part in the Shakespeare Schools festival at the Tobacco Factory in town, there is a big school musical every year (think Guys and Dolls and High School Musical) and the department has even taken pupils to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe.

There are not one but two music blocks (one of which was opened by Sir Michael Tippett), with most girls learning at least one instrument and over 30 peripatetic teachers and, of course, choirs, orchestras, flute groups, cello groups and jazz bands galore, as well as music tech.

Art, printing, photography, metalwork, ceramics and textiles are taken seriously, and, as a vibrant and clearly inspiring Head of Art whizzed me around her studio spaces – a warren of rooms with light flooding in – I was blown away by the standard of work. See what I mean?

A fabulous Sixth Form Centre provides the Lower and Upper Sixth with a place to live and work. As well as the study rooms (all girls have a space in the house, even if they don’t board), small classrooms for tutorial work and a mini common room, there is a fabulous kitchen/living room that someone with a serious eye for design has gotten their hands on – colourful sofas, funky cushions, dining nooks, TVs, pianos, table footballs and murals fill the space, while outside in their very own garden they have outdoor seating, swing tennis and a vast lawn to laze around (sorry, study) on.

The Sports Centre features a gym, climbing wall, fitness and conditioning suite, fencing piste (I have never seen one in a school before) and their own spin studio. Oh, and there’s a rather smart viewing platform for parents to look out over the enormous Astro next door. The school offers a number of elite performance pathways for athletes, working closely with local sports teams including Redland Ladies Hockey, Westbury Harriers Running Club and Westbury-on-Trym Archery Club.

The latest addition is The Hub next door to the Sports Centre and used for events, Young Enterprise work and, most importantly, match teas.

ACADEMIC

The school is academic but by no means a hot house environment. Both GCSEs and IGCESs are on offer, with subjects as diverse as Greek, Russian, Further Maths, Graphics and Photography.

A GCSE Plus Programme, where pupils can take courses in subjects like dance and global perspectives, alongside the core subjects of English, Maths, two or three Sciences, History and Geography, is new.

Most girls move up from the Prep School (although a handful are lost to the lure of co-ed), with around 10-20% more girls joining in Year 7 (sitting the school’s own 11+ exam), another 10-20% joining in Year 9 and a further intake into the Sixth Form – unlike some single sex schools, girls here tend to stay on after GCSEs.

In the Sixth Form the school run what they term a 3+ model – girls choose three A-Levels and then add on a Plus Option, which can be a ‘long thin’ AS subject, taken over two years rather than one, a GCSE or an EPQ. A special mention must go to their Creative Writing Diploma which the school’s own English Department created with Bristol Grammar School. A-Level subjects include traditionally academic areas as well as more modern Psychology, Business and PE. They’re implementing a new self-directed learning programme.

A high proportion of students take a science A Level, and lots of girls choose to take Maths into the Sixth Form, even if not as a specific A Level. There are drop-in support clinics for girls who want extra study, or who need a helping hand, or who just, you know, love the subject. It isn’t unusual either for the School to work with such giants of industry like Dyson who pop in and give the girls an encouraging lecture or work with them in small workshop and girls get heavily involved in Bristol University Science Day.

The Science Outreach Team is legendary. Girls in Years 10 and 12 visit primary schools to teach science to younger children, exploring such complicated arenas as Advanced Magnetism and getting their hands on liquid nitrogen; and the Institute of Physics has often invited students to demonstrate science at their annual festivals, in front of world class scientists, no less. I was shown how magnets stop roller coasters – fascinating stuff. Girls have been invited to present at the UK Big Bang, the Cheltenham Science Festival and the Northern Ireland Science Festival.

Academic results are impressive. In 2022, at GCSE, 43% of all grades were Grade 9, and around a third of pupils achieved Grades 8 & 9 for all exams. All grades in Further Maths and 75% in the Sciences, Maths and Computing were Grades 8 and 9. At A Level, 73% of girls achieved A/A* level; over a quarter achieved three A*.

Almost all girls go to their first choice of university and go on to a wide variety of higher education, including Oxbridge and Russell Group universities, as well as studying art, drama and music at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and conservatoires, with a healthy half dozen heading off to the States, Far East or Europe to study.

HEADTEACHER

Jessica Miles MA (Oxon), PGCE, joined the school as Headteacher in April 2023. A passionate advocate of single sex education – and in particular for girls – Jessica was formerly the Head of Monmouth School for Girls and Head of Queen Margaret’s School, a day and boarding school for girls in York. Also on her CV: Dulwich College, Sherborne School and Leweston School in Dorset.

It wasn’t just the opportunity to head up one of the UK’s leading girls’ schools that made her take the job. For her, the beauty of Badminton is that it’s always been a global school, throughout its history, in its tradition and through choice. The school campus may feel like a beautiful country estate, but it’s actually in the vibrant city of Bristol (you can walk into Clifton in half an hour), with a school population – both day girls and boarders – that’s culturally and ethnically diverse. The focus is on preparing for a global world, developing the necessary soft skills as well as offering an academic education of the highest calibre, preparing the girls to do anything and go anywhere in the world. It’s not so small that it’s parochial; it’s not so big that it loses its sense of identity and family, with everyone looking after each other. The school isn’t an academic hothouse and she’s as proud of girls going to do apprenticeships as she is of those heading off to Oxbridge. Moving forward, she’s looking to build on the school’s already exciting creative and performing arts, and enhancing its environmental footprint.

REPORTS

You can see the latest reports from the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), equivalent to Ofsted in the state sector, here.

LITTLIES

Under the guidance of the dynamic Head Heidi Welch, the Prep shares the same campus with its big sister and takes girls from 4-11. Most girls move up to the Senior School. Class sizes are small, pastoral care seems excellent, there’s Forest School every week and, as with the older girls, creativity and imagination are embraced. For working parents the school offers genuine wrap-around care with an early breakfast club from 7.45am, plenty of after school activities and the opportunity to board once girls are in Year 5. Girls can stay until 5.45pm for no extra charge.

BOARDING

Badminton is a boarding school, but it’s one where over half the pupils are day girls. Boarding can start as young as Year 5 and unsurprisingly becomes more and more popular higher up the school; up until Year 9, most of the pupils are day girls. Around 50% of boarders are overseas students, from countries as diverse as Russia, Nigeria and China, and ad-hoc boarding is also available depending on availability.

There are three boarding houses: cosy Bartlett for Years 5-8, modern Sanderson for Years 9-11 and the Sixth Form Centre. Warm, welcoming and spacious, with modern furnishings, well-equipped common rooms and ‘brew rooms’ for making drinks and snacks, the boarding houses that sleep the younger boarders are closed during the day, so there is no slinking off to your bedroom to hide, and the 50/50 mix of boarders and day girls makes for a fully integrated student body.

Pupils say they like the fact that the school doesn’t ‘empty out’ at the evenings and weekends, and that day girls will often choose to spend nights in boarding or will come in at weekends to complete prep, join in the myriad of trips and activities, or just hang out with their friends. In fact, even non boarders stay until 6pm for lessons several nights a week from Year 9 upwards, and will more often than not stay for evening clubs after that.

Weekends are filled with activities and trips, many of which the day girls are also invited to. The Bristol Aquarium and Cabot Circus shopping centre are favourite spots for outings and further afield they’ll go surfing on the North Devon coast, take in a Christmas market or go ice-skating.

Girls are taught independence and life skills; from Year 9 they use the school’s well-equipped laundry rooms to launder their own home clothes and by the time they are in the Sixth Form, they do everything bar muddy sports gear and sheets.

WHAT ELSE?

The school has a definite character – getting involved, mucking in and giving everything a go (one year, the summer play was performed in a number of languages as there were so many girls studying a myriad of different languages and everyone wanted to get involved!). Girls really do need to be willing to engage, and it’s probably not the place for trophy gatherers purely with their eye on the prize – while the school certainly does well in all fields the goal is NOT to stock up that trophy cabinet, but to embrace the experience getting there.

Pastoral care is strong, with a welfare structure that includes form tutors, pastoral heads, peer mentoring, a wellbeing room, and an on-site health centre with professionally trained staff offering one-to-one support.

There is a strong feeling of community, and community service and entrepreneurship are encouraged. School ambassadors (rather than ‘prefects’) have to apply for the posts, be interviewed and then chosen by staff and senior girls, before receiving training in the history of the school, safe guarding and etiquette. In the same way, the three Head Girls (two of whom showed me around) are interviewed and chosen by students and staff – a recent campaign was for the school to use less plastic, and they introduced Meat Free Mondays to the dining room. Much work is done with the older community at St Monica’s next door, and the Senior School girls help out with the tinies in Little Acorns or assist with the Prep School’s swimming lessons. Unsurprisingly, in a school that breeds a firm sense of community and responsibility, the Duke of Edinburgh scheme is popular and unusually the school offers all three levels of Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Whilst the school is fully tech’d up, and all pupils from Year 7 up can bring in their own devices, the emphasis here is on metacognition – thinking about individual thought process and how pupils learn – too much screen time can be passive.

Everything that happens here is underpinned by the school’s four Golden Roots (and you see this image lots around the school, from the Prep up): be kind and respect everyone; make safe choices; believe in yourself; and work and play well with others.

Phone policy: they’re allowed before school, after school and away after lights out. As pupils go up the school, it’s more about self-regulation than rules.

The uniform? Girls can choose to wear either skirts or trousers. In the Sixth Form, you get to wear your own gear but with a nifty tweedy blazer over the top.

There are around 100 clubs and societies, running the gamut from Art to Zebedee (Christian Union), and including Robotics and Physical Computing, Model United Nations, Cross Stitch, Film Creation and Editing and Gabblers Club, an after dinner speaking club for pupils across Bristol.

QUIRKS & BOASTY BITS

A team of six girls won the national Tycoon £1k Enterprise Competition and were overall winners for the whole Tycoon Enterprise Competition in 2021, organised by the Peter Jones Foundation (the Peter Jones CBE of Dragon’s Den fame). Their social enterprise company The Citrus Way, produces and sells an environmentally friendly cleaning solution made with food waste including orange and lemon peel. Where can I buy it?!

The science school trips are exceptional, take their visit to CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research and the home of the Hadron Collider – what an incredible opportunity.

Badminton School stars in the CBBC series Our Boarding School, which tells the story of life behind the scenes in a boarding school. The BBC crew came spent several months at the school and filmed 20 episodes. You can watch it on iPlayer here.

Students have had a paper published in an international academic and peer reviewed journal published by the Institute of Physics. Just wow.

Badminton has a strong international vibe, and children embrace learning about other cultures. The girls are certainly a close-knit group – whether that is having tea together at 4pm every afternoon (the food is excellent, I’m told), staying after school to do as many clubs as possible, or Celebrating Badminton Day at the end of term, when parents are treated to a huge concert on the lawns.

There are school dogs named Chas and Dave.

FEES

Fees per term from September 2024. Prep School day fees are £4,090 for Reception to Year 2; £4,330 for Years 3-4 and £4,685 for Years 5-6. Prep School boarding is £9,325 per term.

Senior School day fees are £6,850, weekly boarding is £12,855 and full boarding is £3,640.

WORD ON THE GROUND

The parents I spoke to were pretty much all in agreement – they love the flexibility, wide range of activities and opportunities at this true boarding school, and the international feeling is welcomed. They feel the girls support each other and are keen to muck in. ‘We’re in it together,’ says one parent. The balance of academic, sport and creative arts is good, and of course they love the gorgeous campus. And the girls? I had lunch with a group of different ages, day and boarders, and they were a delightful bunch; friendly, good-humoured and down-to-earth and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

Good for: Parents looking for an all-round education for their girls. The small number of pupils means that staff get to know all the pupils well, and the school has some of the best boarding and pastoral care provision I have seen. Scientists, future Judi Denches and the next Banksy will be inspired. It’s got the calmness of a country school with the buzz of the city just down the road.

Not for: Children who aren’t joiner-inners. This is definitely a school where everyone is expected to play their part and have a go. Trophy gatherers beware!

See for yourself: Open day and visits 2025: Prep School Open Morning Thurs 6 Feb; Senior School/Sixth Form Open Morning Fri 28 Feb; Whole School Open Morning Fri 2 May but the school is always happy to show prospective parents around. You can get in touch here.

Badminton School, Westbury Road, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol BS9 3BA. Tel 0117 905 5200, www.badmintonschool.co.uk

Badminton School, Bristol

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