Ardingly College

Ardingly College is an award-winning independent co-educational school offering an outstanding all-through education to over a thousand children, aged 2 to 18, in a beautiful 240-acre campus in West Sussex, with excellent transport links locally, to London and across the South-East.

The Senior School has around 850 students, over 300 of whom are boarders. The curriculum is designed to be broad and stimulating, with over 25 subjects offered and a choice of A Level, IB Diploma or BTEC courses in the Sixth Form. The Prep School has around 200 pupils from Reception to Year 6, as well as a thriving Nursery. Reception to Year 3 pupils are based in our Farmhouse site, with Years 4 to 6 on the main school site in School House.

The wellbeing and welfare of our students are paramount, with a strong emphasis on pastoral support provided through House staff, the Health & Wellbeing Centre and additional pastoral support such as the Chaplain, DSL, and Mental Health Lead. Ardingly prides itself on every student being known and valued as an individual and achieves this through small pastoral groups (with a maximum of 10 students in each Tutor Group from Year 9 upwards) and a strong House system, which provides every pupil – whether day or boarding – with their ‘home from home’ at the College. In recognition of this outstanding pastoral care, during the most recent ISI inspection, the College was judged to meet all standards and have a “significant strength” in boarding, which is the highest accolade available under the new ISI inspection regime.

Academic results are high. The College is ranked in the top five schools in the UK for the IB Diploma and in the top ten globally (out of nearly 6,000 schools which take the IB), and our A-Levels and GCSE results are also excellent. While we are proud of our students’ academic success, however, Ardingly places equal value on ensuring our students are equipped with the mindset, personal qualities and skills they will need to succeed in a rapidly changing world beyond school. This is at the heart of our World Ready approach, and our innovative Enterprise & Employability programme recently won two national awards: The Week’s ‘Best Preparation for Life’ and the Independent School of the Year ‘Best for Student Careers’.

The College offers an outstanding range of more than 150 co-curricular activities and has a proud tradition of participation and achievement. With more than 25 sports on offer, we aim for every student to find a sport they enjoy and foster a lifelong love of sport. Our pupils compete successfully at local, regional and national levels in the main sports of football, hockey, swimming, netball, cricket and athletics. Music, Dance and Drama are particularly strong, with lots of performance opportunities, both at the College and in professional venues, and a huge range of clubs, choirs, ensembles and Performing Arts groups for students to get involved in. The College recently acquired the exclusive rights to operate all water sports on the Ardingly Reservoir, which allows us to offer fantastic water sports opportunities to students.

Partnership is integral to the College ethos. Within school, this applies to the partnership between teachers and operations staff to maintain excellent standards and quality of provision across the campus. Beyond the school gates, we work with a range of local primary schools, as well as supporting the local community through volunteering and working with schools abroad in Africa and Asia. The College operates a bursary programme to widen access to an Ardingly education, which includes a partnership to provide transformational bursaries to students via the Royal Springboard Foundation and supporting Ukrainian refugees.

The College leads a growing Family of Schools, which includes a long-term feeder prep school, Great Walstead School, as well as two overseas schools (with additional international schools in the pipeline).