WHAT? WHERE?

A co-ed independent day and boarding school for 13 to 18 year olds, Monkton Combe School is set within the village of Monkton Combe in the Midford Valley with its stunning woodland views, just a mile south of the city of Bath.

The school was established in 1868 by the first vicar of Monkton Combe, the Reverend Francis Pocock, for the sons of missionaries and clergy. Having grown from just six boys to around 400, the school has been fully co-ed since the 1990s and firmly remains a Christian school, nurturing strong Christian foundations and values amongst the pupils, and open to all faiths or none. Just over half of the pupils are boarders, and around 15 percent of students are international.

Part of the Rugby Group of 18 British independent schools which also includes Cheltenham College, Harrow, Rugby, Stowe and Winchester, it maintains some of the classic public school traditions.

The Prep School with Nursery and Kindergarten is a few minutes away up on Combe Down (read our review).

In March 2022, All Hallows, a prep school with shared values near Frome, joined the Monkton family.

FACILITIES

The cluster of school buildings date from Victorian times, including the main school block The Old Farm and the terrace block The Old Vicarage, up through the centuries to some striking 21st century architecture.

The early 20th century chapel’s at the heart of the school, both literally and metaphorically. According to the Chaplain, the only place where all the pupils come together, it’s somewhat unconventional inside, with all the seats arranged facing the side of the chapel rather than the altar, so that everyone’s closer into the action.

Built in 2012 and opened by Dame Felicity Lott, the £3.2million Music Centre is gorgeous, with a recording studio, practice rooms and a stunning concert hall. At Monkton, they believe that everyone has the potential to make music, even if they don’t realise it themselves. Hence the formation of the boys’ choir who can’t sing’ (they can, I saw a video) and every single pupil takes part in the annual, competitive inter House Music Festival which, my Sixth Form tour guides told me, is a highlight of the year. A Director of the Expressive Arts ensures close collaboration between the Drama, Music and Dance departments.

About half the pupils learn an instrument with a high percentage winning merits and distinctions in exams (including Rockschool) and prizes in music competitions. There are masses of choirs, ensembles and bands. Internationally renowned musicians visit the school.

The Basson Art & Design Centre, built in 2016, is also impressive. Light and airy, with three large studios where A Level students can set up their own mini studio spaces, a photography studio and dark room, print workshop, ICT suite and all sorts of techie stuff like vacuum formers, CAD and 3D printers.

Pupils move onto to the UK’s top art and design colleges like St Martin’s University of the Arts, London (UAL), and the London College of Fashion. Pupils are also able to study 5 creative A Levels including: Graphic Design, Product Design, Textiles, Photography and Fine Art.

They spent £5 million on developing the Maths & Science Centre, with a different floor for each discipline. The theatre was being used for exams so didn’t see it this time, nor the library but did enjoy a good lunch in the spacious dining hall.

Sixth formers can hang out in the Pearce Centre, an underground bunker with a small café, table footie and pool. Cool.

There are huge all-weather sports pitches, numerous grass and artificial tennis courts, squash courts and a sports hall. Cricket’s played in the summer on Longmead, a natural amphitheatre, which is occasionally also used for al fresco music concerts.

The main Boat Club at Saltford is in good company with the University of Bristol Boat Club and Avon County Rowing Club. A little further along lies a smaller Boat Club underneath the Dundas Aqueduct on the River Avon (the school’s renowned for its rowing). Monkton’s 25m school indoor swimming pool (the only school in Bath with a 25m pool), and newly refurbished gym lie a few minutes up the hill at the Prep School.

ACADEMICS

The Head describes the school as ‘vaguely’ selective; more important is understanding what drives each pupil, whether they think collaboratively and how they approach difficult tasks during assessment days, as well as CAT scores and school reports. It’s not only high achievers and those who might need extra help who get the attention here, there’s a focus on pupils that fall into the middle range and the school’s Value Added score – how much pupils improve from a specific starting point – puts them in top 1% of schools in the country. Impressive.

Years 9–11 take English, Maths and Sciences with a broad range of other subjects including Mandarin, Philosophy & Ethics and Classics/Latin. In 2025, 38.6% of all GCSE grades were 9-8 (A*), 60% were 9-7(A*-A) and 89.6%s were 9-6 (A*-B). Most pupils stay on for A Levels, usually taking four out of 29 subjects as well the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). A Level results: 11.4% A*; 86.3% A*–C. Almost all pupils secured places at their university of choice. Around 8% regularly get to Oxbridge.

THE PRINCIPAL

monkton combe headmaster bradley Salisbury

Bradley Salisbury, former Head of Dean Close School in Cheltenham, joined the school in January 2026. He’s enthusiastic about the all-rounder, grounded nature of school, enjoying its breadth and flexibility, working alongside families and puts a lot of store by the quality of the relationships between pupils and between pupils and staff. He’d just been interviewing Year 12s to be prefects and he stressed that it’s less about leadership and more about service. The Christian side of things is significant as it forms the basis for the school’s renowned pastoral care. He believes that day pupils benefit from the school’s integrated boarding school atmosphere and structure. Day pupils (called day boarders) are allocated a house and are highly involved in all that takes place there – they can come in for breakfast and stay until 9pm, and most come in at weekends so as not to miss any of the fun – and he’s looking to increase this further.

Under his watch they’re revamping the scholarships offer, developing sport including building a sports performance centre (more of that later), boarding houses are being refurbished, communal areas reimagined, and there’s a new Sixth Form centre as well as a new culinary school on the menu.

REPORTS

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

SPORTS

Sport is hotting up here. With the aim of marrying involvement and participation with excellence and performance (basically, they’re getting more competitive), they’ve appointed a new Director of Sport, elite performance coaches, and are investing in more facilities, including a refurbed sports hall with England & Wales Cricket Board approved flooring and new cricket nets, as well as a brilliantly equipped gym.

You’ll find all the major sports: rugby, hockey, cricket, tennis and rowing for both girls and boys; with netball as an extra main sport for girls, all to a very high standard. The boys’ hockey team this season reached the Semi-Finals of the National Schools Championships. A plethora of other stuff includes athletics, fencing, golf, judo and volleyball.

The school collaborates closely with the University of Bath. It’s now a Pentathlon GB Hub, with specialist swim coaching, laser run, Biathle training and fencing, and some pupils have already been selected for GB level. There’s a new three-tier tennis coaching and athletic development through the Futures Programme. In addition, pupils can play padel at nearby Mad Swans and golf at the excellent 45-hole golf course at Cumberwell Park in Bradford-on-Avon.

The school is renowned for its rowing (now extending from 8s to quads), with former pupils having garnered six Olympic medals to date. Everyone has a go from Year 9 onwards and the school teams compete against the best in the UK.

WHAT ELSE?

All pupils are in one of the six Houses, three for boys: Eddystone, Farm and School; three for girls: Clarendon, Grange and Nutfield, with a mix of boarders and day pupils across the year groups, so everyone gets to know everyone else.

There’s chapel most mornings (except for Sunday) and lots of optional faith-based activities, including Monday eve bible study and Wednesday eve Christian Union (with speakers, bands and food) which is run by a Year 13 committee – both very popular.

Saturdays: lessons in the mornings, sporting fixtures in the afternoons.

Community service is high on the agenda; pupils volunteer in care homes, charity shops, local primary schools and with the National Trust.

Outdoor challenges: over to the Brecons, Dartmoor and Snowdonia for Ten Tors and Duke of Edinburgh expeditions.

Whatever floats your boat, you can probably do it here, from Brazilian jiu-jitsu to knitting; computer coding to beginner’s Greek; Combined Cadet Force.

Mobile phones: Years 9–11, none allowed during the day. Boarders can use their phones for half and hour before prep (6.30-8.30) and afterwards but the WiFi cuts out at 10pm.

BOARDING

I poked my nose into two of the six boarding houses: School (boys) and the Grange (girls). Each with a set of house parents and their families living in situ, the boarding houses are very much a home from home. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, the house parents invite pupils over for ‘family time’. Nice touch.

With its bright pink walls and sofa, neon-framed mirror, The Grange houseparent’s office is so cool! The girls love it and so did I. Over in School House, boys were having a ‘stud’ – free study period – and although there was a buzz in the air, looked to actually be studying in the house café.

Pupils sleep in double and single bedrooms with cabin beds and desks (in some houses day pupils have rooms with desks too), and there are huge and comfy common rooms and prep rooms. Pupils contribute with small daily jobs like collecting post and emptying the dishwasher. Tues/Thurs are in-house nights, with food and games, chocolate fountains and for the Sixth Formers, maybe cheese and wine. There are loads of activities at the weekends, often organised by the pupils – BBQs with inflatables, bonfire night, spring and winter balls, trips to Bath, to Thorpe Park, Sunday brunches – even a rodeo with a mechanical bull!

BOASTY BITS /QUIRKS

A former pupil made his first class cricket debut for Gloucestershire, a girl was recently crowned two-time Freestyle Football World Champion, and a Year 9 pupil won the U14 British Tae Kwon-do solo gold.

A Year 10 pupil topped the South West in the National Maths olympiad, and also completed her Maths GCSE a year early, getting a Grade 9.

Monkton won ‘Independent Boarding School of the Year’ in the prestigious Independent School of the Year Awards 2025 confirming them as one of the leading Boarding Schools in the country.

WORD ON THE GROUND

Parents describe the school as fun, wholesome, grounding, socially stretching, faith-building and maturity developing, saying that it creates ‘men and women not just clever children’. The school ‘finds the seed of something you are good at and grows you from that seed’. Teachers go the extra mile to support pupils: although it was not on the curriculum, one had personally tutored a girl in Ancient Greek throughout Sixth Form and into a place at Cambridge. Special Needs provisions are said to be excellent too. Pastoral care is highly rated with one parent saying ‘all my three have needed a little bit of extra attention in different ways; we didn’t choose the school for the shiny sports hall but for the care we saw each child was given’. The campus feel, the home-from-home boarding environment, generously sized sports arenas and halls – and of course, the beautiful setting – all come in for praise.

FEES

Fees per term for 2026/27: Year 9 – 11, £10,485 (day), £16,035 (weekly boarding), £17,700 (full boarding); Year 12 & 13, £11,040 (day), £16,470 (weekly boarding), £17,985 (full boarding).

THE MUDDY VERDICT

Good for: an excellent all-round education, as strong on personal development as on academics, sports and the arts, and where no one will get lost or overlooked.

Not for: although it’s not overbearing, the school’s Christian foundation might not be for everyone.

Want to know more? Make a date to visit the school on one of their Open Days: Senior School, Sat 3 Oct; Sixth Form Open Evening, Fri 9 October. Call their Admissions team on 01225 721133 or email admissions@monkton.org.uk.

Monkton Combe School, Monkton Combe, Bath, Somerset BA2 7HG. Tel 01225 721133.

Monkton Combe School, Bath

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