A charming school built on solid core values, which looks to be modernising with care and thought.

Certainly, the pupils are excited by their learning and bursting to talk about it

Day-to-day, the atmosphere is serene. Students are courteous and smiley as they make their unhurried way around the main college buildings, which have the feel of a cathedral crossed with a military academy – austere and magnificent in equal parts

Parents say with one voice that pastoral care is the key strength – ‘the senior staff really live the values of the school’.

The idyllic 400 acres and imposing buildings are imbued with this heritage, most notably the jaw-dropping Pugin-designed chapel, worthy of any capital city

Parents approve of the attention paid to trends in students’ grades and the intervention offered when expectations are not met

Top grades consistently account for at least a third of results in the college