WHAT? WHERE?  

Eltham College is an independent day school for girls and boys aged 11-18 in south-east London, close to the Kent border (though many start from age 7 in its Junior School). Despite the suburban backdrop, the school occupies a leafy 70-acre site around a grand Georgian manor which overlooks the expanse of playing fields and an enormous plane tree, setting a stately tone. The rest of the campus is a walk through the ages of architecture from 80s utilitarian teaching blocks to edgy contemporary buildings.  

Life at school centres on the quad with its vast adonis-like bronze statues, Power and Speed, holding aloft a lion and eagle respectively. Oxbridge-esque colonnades around the quad join the modern to the 19th Century and are an overtly architectural expression of the school’s academic aspirations. Indeed Eltham is on the up, with nearly 10 applicants per place, up from four a decade ago, and now 1,040 pupils across its Junior and Senior Schools, up from 840 in 2014. Eltham has a reputation as a strong all rounder and has academic results to match the likes of Dulwich College, Alleyn’s, Trinity School and Sevenoaks School – its main rivals.   Indeed, in December 2023, Eltham was named “Independent School of the Year 2024 (London)” in the Parent Power, Sunday Times Schools Guide 2024.

Having taken girls in its Sixth Form for the previous 45 years, Eltham College began accepting girls in all year groups in 2020. This process has now been completed and from this September, the school will be fully co-educational in all year groups from Year 3 to Year 13. The school’s 850 or so pupils come mostly from the local area and there’s no ambition to draw pupils from a wider area, with numbers capped at the current level and class sizes at a maximum of 24 but half that size in the Sixth Form. Eltham College Junior School (Years 3 to 6), that has an additional 250 pupils, is a few minutes’ walk away across the playing fields and shares many of the facilities of the Senior School including the dining hall, theatre, sports hall, swimming pool and the chapel.  

Earlier in 2023, the school merged with another successful local school, Blackheath Prep, to form a new ‘Eltham College family of Schools’ from September 2023. This new group comprises of Eltham College and Eltham College Junior School as well as Blackheath Prep.  The College believes that this development represents an exciting new chapter as the synergies between the two schools are realised. Already there is sharing of facilities, joint events and learning enrichment activities between Eltham College and Blackheath Prep, and closer collaboration between staff at both schools.

While the Christian ethos is strong here, the school is non-denominational, and students attend a service no more than once a week with the young and cheery chaplain, Rev Jim Houghton. The modest 1920s chapel is also used for non-religious meetings such as assemblies and the student-led Congress, and the stained glass window depicts the school’s famous plane tree – a lovely touch. All-in-all it’s a moderate and modern approach to schooling based on Christian values.   

FACILITIES

SPORT  

Sport is massive here – the walls are adorned with photos of the school’s champion teams for Kent cricket and netball and three extra sports teachers are being employed next year in hockey, netball and aquatics.

The sports facilities are impressive and have been further strengthened in recent years thanks to donations and fundraising. A second astro was opened in November 2022, mainly for hockey, and the changing rooms in the Sports Centre have been refurbished. Next on the agenda is more netball courts, as the school has aspirations to be the best national netball school in the country. 

Boys and girls both play hockey, cricket and rugby (a new option for girls) and there’s also pilates, dancing, golf, fencing and so on. Inside the Eric Liddell sports centre, which houses the gym, 25m swimming pool, dance studio, badminton and basketball courts is also a climbing wall, all of it shared with the community. Eltham doesn’t need to use any other school or community facilities – they come here instead, which speaks volumes.  

Kids with sporting prowess are offered the High Performance Athletes Programme, which includes extra coaching, guidance and training with seminars such as nutrition, hydration and a savvy addition – safety in social media. It’s not just about the stars though – there are C and D teams in the main team sports including Rugby, Hockey, Cricket and Netball. 

MUSIC, DRAMA & ART 

This is an area of strength, for sure, and music at the school is definitely on the rise. The 60% take-up in learning musical instruments is made possible by the team of specialist teachers, six practice rooms and studios, and there are 40 orchestras, bands and choirs to join. Performances range from casual piano recitals in the music foyer to the orchestras performing at London venues such as the Royal Festival and Royal Albert halls. The jazz band regularly plays at venues such as Blackheath Halls.

Across the other side of campus, the Gerald Moore Art Gallery has a really special feel to it. Aside from the two high spec enclosed and lighting-rigged art spaces, it has a glass foyer and pretty garden space that makes for a gorgeous setting for exhibitions and events. Opened in 2012, the contemporary gallery is another community asset and is used for workshops and classes and to exhibit work from both students and external artists as well as the school’s resident artist, a rotating teaching post.     

The theatre next door is a flexible performance space and when I visited a class had kicked off their shoes and were sat in a circle reading a script in the sort of structured, yet informal set-up that seems to define the school. Anything from big musical numbers to smaller House and class productions are staged here, as well as a regular series of lectures for students and parents given by leading outside speakers. Every year a handful of students go on to institutions like RADA and Guildhall, and many students take part in inter-school debating competitions.

SCHOOL 

The library is a functional but light and airy space that is clearly well used by students for quiet study time and hosts seminars from author Tom Mitchell, the school’s creative writing director (the first such post I’ve come across for several years at a school, so bravo on that). Whilst humanities are taught in high ceilinged rooms of the manor house with tall Georgian windows and a classic public school classroom feel, maths and languages are taught in the modern Turberville Building, which opened in 2019 and is temperature controlled and ergonomic and eco-friendly with its flexible working spaces and fashionably visible ventilation pipes.  

Science shares its building with DT, psychology and geology – a hint to the approach taken to these subjects which might otherwise have been slotted into humanities or arts (there are three DT rooms alone filled with machinery and materials). A major refurbishment programme has just been completed with new atrium and windows, modern furniture and better connectivity. In September 2024, four new science labs will have been opened and the school is reconfiguring the whole of the Science Centre to improve physical access and modernise many of the teaching and learning facilities. Eltham also has a long history of geology, which along with astronomy, Ancient Greek and robotics are all taught and examined alongside more conventional subjects.     

The school also distinguishes itself with its choice in languages from Year 7 of Latin plus two modern foreign languages from a choice of either French, Spanish, German or Mandarin. Students can also specialise in three from Computer Science, Music, Art, Drama or DT from an earlier stage than many other schools. 

SIXTH FORM  

The majority of the 240 or so Sixth Formers take three A levels plus the EPQ. The school’s top ten A level subjects out of the 24 choices at Eltham are Maths, Physics, Geography, Economics, Further Maths, Chemistry, History, Biology, Politics and English Literature (compared nationally to Maths, Psychology, Biology, English, Chemistry, History, Sociology, Art and Design, Physics and Business Studies). 

The rite of passage for Sixth Formers here includes wearing your own suit for boys and a simple black suit trouser or skirt ensemble for girls, freedom to use your phone anywhere outside of classrooms, and access to the Sixth Form centre with its cafe, study spaces and careers office. With views across the playing fields it’s a pleasant and grown-up space in which to hang out. The vibe I got from the upper year groups was collegiate and studious but not pressured; and, fully co-ed, with boys and girls relaxed in each other’s company. 

ACADEMIC  

Eltham’s 2024 A-Level results make happy reading, with 65% of pupils hitting the A* grades of 9 and 8, and 90% of pupils gaining 9-6 (A*, A, B). Destination unis are almost all red brick bar a handful of drama students or music scholars heading to conservatoires.  In GCSEs, the 2024 results have seen 64.5% of grades awarded 9 or 8. That’ll do!

Clearly academic ability is important here, though the headmaster insists that it is only part of the entry process – every applicant is still interviewed to ensure a broad cohort and ability in the arts or sport are highly rated.   

Students I spoke to said they felt that teachers at Eltham want to teach beyond the curriculum and that the range of clubs and activities enabled them to find new passions. A lecture series launched in 2022 has seen nine speakers so far varying from a CERN physicist to former pupil Chris Jagger (brother of Mick); Alex Hibbert, Arctic explorer; international relations expert, Professor Michael Clarke; Katie King, AI expert, and a wellbeing coach and mentor – a reflection of the school’s broad spectrum approach.  

SEND  

The five-strong learning support team has a dedicated space for meetings and providing quiet support to students on an individual or group basis, as well as supporting in-lesson and help setting up friendship groups for social and communication skill set.  

PASTORAL CARE 

The fact that part of the recent £10m investment project was a Medical and Wellbeing Centre shows how Eltham has bumped this up the agenda. As well as the full-time counsellor, there’s a team of trained teachers, nurses and the chaplain named on posters around the school.  

The Centre’s staff run regular informal drop-in sessions called ‘Choc and Chat’ where students can have a hot chocolate and talk, but if face-to-face is too daunting, the school’s app, Whisper, allows students to anonymously report concerns about welfare or bullying. The last ISI inspection, in 2022, was glowingly positive on the topic of personal development (and Excellent in all areas). It particularly highlighted confidence, support, empathy, diversity and respect among pupils.  

In 2023 and 2024, the College has continued to win prestigious educational awards and been shortlisted for others, often for its work in Diversity and Inclusion, especially its name pronunciation initiative called ‘Every Name Matters’. This is a school-wide initiative that ensures every pupil’s surname is pronounced accurately by teachers and students.

The governors of the school have increased the provision of bursaries to enable some Ukrainian refugees, the guests of Eltham parents, to join the school. This is hugely popular among the students, many of whom have been wearing welcome badges in the colours of the Ukrainian flag.  

QUIRKS 

Despite the school’s lengthy heritage, there’s no glossary of archaic terms here and the uniform is plainly functional and understated rather than pompous (the school’s gold and blue striped blazer and cap were consigned to the archive in the 1960s). The students I spoke to felt that all teachers knew them by name and regarded Eltham as a community school. The head still invites every Year 7 student to his office for a doughnut and a chat on their birthday – a good start to putting a face to a name – and to soften the hierarchy. Every year, each of the four houses has a charity day when they come up with activities to generate donations, which last year saw kids paying to throw cream pies at teachers.  

THE HEAD 

Guy Sanderson has been in the role for 10 years and overseen a huge wave of investment in that time, though his major initiative has been the move to co-ed. When we met he was warm and efficient, fitting in my meeting between interviewing ten prospective head boys and girls. He’s proud of the fact that 90% of girls choose to continue DT in Year 8, addressing the oft-chimed statement by girls’ school heads that co-ed schools lead girls down the creative and humanities routes. 

He sees the school’s USP as maintaining its academic prowess and balanced approach to extra/co-curricular while staying smaller than the leading independents – Eltham has 794 Senior students to Highgate’s 1,200 or Latymer’s 1,400, for example. He’s not about to send buses up to north London and is emphatic about keeping students local and working with the community. He wants the school to feel comfortable and unpretentious – there’s no grand hall or pomp and procession here. 

WRAP AROUND CARE  

Students can be left in supervised areas, such as the dining hall and library, from 8am, and once school ends, just before 4pm, they can stay in the library until 5.30pm or opt for an after-school club (all free), which end at the same time. There are late coaches for those going home at this time, so you don’t have to compromise clubs for transport. 

MOBILE PHONE POLICY  

Students in Years 7-11 can only use their phones while in the quad. 

TRANSPORT  

School buses link destinations within a 10-mile radius including Beckenham, Orpington, Surrey Quays, Blackheath and East Greenwich and a mainline train station, Mottingham, is just over 10-minutes’ walk away. 

FEES  

For London, the fees are average I’d say. The senior school costs £8,365 per term plus £395 per term for lunch. The school offers means-tested bursaries and a range of scholarships for talented students – academic, music, sport and art.

WORD ON THE GROUND  

The food has recently improved at school with lots of devoted packed lunchers now opting for school meals, with exotic options like bao buns and katsu curry luring them in alongside a salad bar and jacket potatoes for the picky brigade.  

Despite its impressive facilities, students consistently rave about the playing fields as their favourite spot, and the access they’re given to them at break-times. While roughly segregated by year group and gently overseen by a teacher, it’s freedom, fresh air and very much in keeping with the ethos here of creating a non-pressured and un-Draconian environment.  

Likewise ‘school rules’ have been replaced by a ‘constitution’ and changes posed by a democratically-elected school congress are rarely trumped by staff – for example, they’ve just voted in changes to the uniform.   

THE MUDDY VERDICT 

An impressive school with facilities that are well balanced between academia, sport, creativity and beyond. It reflects a genuine approach to nurturing the softer skills looked for by universities and employers, like resilience, teamwork, empathy and initiative.

Good for: Self-motivated all-rounders who have a go-getter drive and are keen to throw themselves into activities while keeping up with their studies.  

Not for: Although academic prowess isn’t a sole criteria, it is important. An across-the-board B-grade student could feel a little left behind by their peers. Also, not for parents looking for pomp and ceremony for their buck. 

Eltham College, Grove Park Road, Mottingham, London, SE9 4QF. Tel: 020 8857 1455, www.eltham-college.org.uk