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Our view
There’s real magic happening at this school where pastoral care and mentoring are among the best we’ve seen. Pupils are afforded real respect, they’re free to express their own individuality and their ambitions are nurtured in all areas – all in a jaw-dropping setting. Academic results are beyond impressive but it’s the value added that tells the real story. Every pupil thrives here and the school is tireless in ensuring it never stops trying to get even better. It’s no wonder it’s oversubscribed, and as its close ties with
Bryanston Prep grow ever stronger, the all-through education Bryanston offers is a no-brainer for many families.
Where?
You can’t dispute the magnificence of Bryanston’s first impressions. Meander past the Doric column archways, pootle along the long, long drive – weaving through rugged woodland and past elegant stables – and you’ll finally arrive at the school’s knockout Norman Shaw-designed red-brick mansion, which was modelled on a Loire Valley château. Set just outside the sleepy Dorset village of Blandford Forum, deep in gorgeous West Country countryside, the estate spreads out across 400 acres, with the River Stour running parallel to it – and the school’s all-singing, all-dancing boathouse gracing its banks.
It’s not all historical treasures. The facilities here are extraordinary – including the Terence Conran-masterminded dining hall and The Sanger, the mega-wow-factor science and maths centre named after two-times Nobel Prize-winner and OB Freddie Sanger, and designed by the same architects as the London 2012 Olympics velodrome.
Most pupils are boarders but a flexi-boarding option gives day students the opportunity to stay overnight. In response to parental demand, there are also now a small number (14-15) of day places (without a bed) available.
Buses run from Salisbury, Dorchester, Bournemouth (including Sandbanks), Ringwood and Brockenhurst. Salisbury, the nearest city, is a 40-minute drive away and from there, trains to London Waterloo take 1.5 hours.
Head
Bryanston’s head Richard Jones took up the role in 2022 after a year as acting head – he initially joined the school in 2020 as second master. With a master’s in educational leadership and experience both as a housemaster and teacher from his time at Canford and St John’s School Leatherhead, he definitely comes well qualified for the top spot. A likeable and liberal man with a steely edge, he is evidently proud of everything Bryanston has to offer – from its unique one-to-one tutoring system, which he calls the school’s ‘jewel in the crown’, to its entrepreneurial spirit, recently demonstrated when pupils pitched for sponsorship for their Green Power go-karting project and raised £10,000.
Entrepreneurship and innovation are one of the four pillars he’s zeroing in on, the other three being creative and performing arts, sports and wellbeing, and the digital world. His strategy is perfectly in step with the way the world is moving. We noticed the integration of real-world thinking and practices everywhere we looked on our visit – from meetings happening in the café over a cup of coffee to the lack of a uniform, which allows pupils to express themselves as they wish.
He's a real investor in staff, too, with weekly CPD lessons and coaching for all academic staff with an aim that a few will specialise and then be able to deliver in-house coaching to staff in the future.
He has personal as well as professional ties with the prep – his two boys are pupils there and his wife helps out with social media. Prep pupils are often seen in the senior school, whether they’re working on a wind chimes project in D&T or playing one of the 200 pianos in the music centre.
Admissions
Like many things at Bryanston, the approach to admissions is highly bespoke. Children flock here from over 90 prep schools and 39 countries, and as a result, there’s a huge amount of diversity and no real Bryanston ‘type’. Instead, the aim is to encourage Bryanston pupils to be open, ambitious and entrepreneurial, and to take risks and succeed.
It’s a popular place, so be prepared to start enquiries three years before entry; prospective parents are taken on an initial tour with a dozen or so other families, but there are plenty of opportunities to pop back for another look around. For entry at 13+, prospective pupils are invited to a Discovery Day in Year 5, which gives them an opportunity to find out more about the school, hear from current pupils and take part in an activity. In Years 6 and 7, registered pupils are invited to one of Bryanston's Imagine Days, a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the school's facilities and for teachers to gain an insight into each child. CAT4 testing takes places in Years 6, 7 or 8, depending on the year the pupil is in when they are registered. References are then requested from the pupil's current school, and interviews help staff line up best-fit tutors and get a grasp of co-curricular interests. Offers are then made taking into account each of these components.
There are roughly three applicants per place for Year 9 entry (80 boys and 56 girls max), but entrance is nicely broad; Bryanston prides itself on its superb value-added. About 20 to 30 places open up at sixth form – entrance is via CAT4 testing and achieving at least 40 points at GCSE.
Academics and destinations
Spoon-feeding doesn’t exist at Bryanston, and much of Year 9 is spent teaching pupils the ‘Bryanston Method’, which empowers them to take independent control of their learning and manage their time and assignments effectively. Pupils are carefully matched with a dedicated tutor who sticks with them right through from Years 9 to 13, becoming their life coach and mentor as well as their academic guide. Assignment periods (of which there are more than average) can be spent in the pupil’s choice of study area – impressively, each subject has its own library with a teacher on hand to help. This, as well as long lead times on assignments, helps to encourage self-motivation while also offering support and mentoring if needed. A clever new timetable structure will see a weighting of the more academic lessons at the start of the week and in the mornings (on Thursdays and Fridays, academic lessons will finish at 1:15pm), more classroom time for maths, English and science, and sports spread more evenly across the week.
Despite the very creative environment and the overriding sense of freedom, there is still a great deal of academic rigour and structure, and expectations are high: pupils are graded weekly on eCharts (which parents can look at via an app). The result: brilliantly robust academics – as long as your child is prepared to push themselves. SEND provision is also spot-on. They are currently supporting around 100 pupils with one-to-one and small group sessions. Termly targets are set and reviewed to determine if pupils are ready to apply what they’ve learned independently or need more bespoke support. As well as offering dyslexia support, there is also subject-specific help and sessions on things such as organisation, timekeeping, structuring essays and exam technique for everyone.
Pupils take a minimum of eight or nine GCSEs, with some doing 10 or 11, while ancient and modern languages remain part of the subject offer. In the summer term, once the Year 9s have chosen their GCSE options, they will be able to do two elective courses instead of continuing to have lessons in some of the subjects they are dropping.
The sixth form offering is beyond impressive – and it’s large, making up nearly half the school, which enables a real breadth that allows each pupil to find the right path for them, whether it’s A-levels, IB or CTEC, the Cambridge board version of BTEC which really suits those who don’t like exam-based assessment. Deputy head and head of sixth form Liz Thornton tells us they aim to make pupils as independent as possible to ease them into their next step beyond school. Teachers offer weekly ‘correction’ classes, often one-to-one, to help anyone who hasn’t understood the prep; those who have are given extension material. It’s just one of the ways the school caters to everyone. And the results speak for themselves: in 2024, a third of all grades were A* to A or equivalent across A level and IB.
Pupils head on to anywhere from Oxbridge to music conservatoires, catering college, art foundation courses, apprenticeships or even straight into work – a delightfully individual range of destinations of which Mr Jones is very proud. There is no set trodden path for Bryanston pupils, he says – from degree apprenticeships with JP Morgan to studying fashion in Paris, the opportunities are endless, and pupils are given plenty of inspiration while they’re still at school, with the brilliant head of entrepreneurship, innovation and employability Caroline de Mowbray opening their minds up to everything from start-ups to overseas applications and apprenticeships.
Co-curricular
Bryanston's director of sport Rory McCann is a huge advocate for sports as a boost for pupils’ wellbeing and sense of belonging – and a team-first mentality across all sports and disciplines. There’s a proper sport-for-all-ethos, with football, rugby, netball, hockey, cricket, rowing, squash, tennis (these facilities are next on the list for an upgrade) and equestrianism et al, as well as the extraordinarily good Performance Sport programme for the scholars for PSP. The school has a partnership with Dorset cricket to provide talent pathways and is looking for tie-ins with other sports too, and the in-house coaches are impressively high calibre. There is also lots of variety for those who prefer to play for fun (the brand-new skate park being a perfect example). The sports centre is fabulous, featuring a smart indoor bouldering wall, indoor sprint track with state-of-the-art laser timers and a dedicated analysis room with 3D cameras and physiotherapy to ensure everyone is in peak condition.
The equestrian centre is top notch and there are plans to improve it even further. There are already 60 horses in the programme and the show-jumping lesson we spotted as we toured the grounds in the school buggy was impressive. From Year 11, pupils are allowed to go off on their own hack – 90 per cent of the 75 pupils who ride own a horse. They compete at international level and use the polo club up the road for both prep and senior teams. They’re also part of the Riding for the Disabled group and offer support for Change Life Through Horses. Rowing is popular too (one of the coaches is a double Olympian) – the boathouse on the river is full of rowing boats and has an upstairs training area.
Creativity is a core part of Bryanston’s DNA, and art, music and drama are leading strengths. You only need to look at the star-studded alumni to get an idea: Lucian Freud, Emilia Fox, Jasper Conran, Sir Mark Elder, Max Irons – and we’ve hardly scratched the surface. The art and D&T departments are incredible. D&T is compulsory at Year 9, and we saw everything from skateboards to desk tidies being created. It’s a popular GCSE option, with an equal boys-girls split. The art department has a library, a pottery studio, a kiln and 3D printers. Each year group has its own room, so their artwork stays put rather than being carted around.
There’s a Greek theatre for outdoor plays, masses of student-devised drama (and 15 large-scale productions annually, from The Addams Family to an innovative play by Years 9 to 11 called The Hug) and an incredible standard of dance – everything from ballet to tap to hip-hop, with pupils competing in live dance competitions at the XL Centre at the weekend.
All pupils are encouraged to learn an instrument or have singing lessons when they join in D (Year 9). If a pupil has never had music lessons before, then - impressively - free tuition on any instrument or voice is offered for one term. No instrument is off the table either; if it’s bagpipes a pupil wants to learn, the school will make it happen. There’s a concert hall and recording studio - and an all-pervading atmosphere of encouragement.
Then there are the 125+ clubs and societies on offer (members of staff are all expected to run one, pupils also lead some, and taster sessions in Year 9 get everyone trying something new); compulsory outdoor education (but no CCF); and the brilliant Pioneering programme in which pupils run riding classes for the disabled, work as classroom assistants in local primary schools or create artwork to donate to the local community.
Boarding
Most pupils opt for full boarding (around 90 per cent), and those who sign up for flexi-boarding also get a bed. Weekends offer a degree of flexibility with open weekends for those who wish to travel home after Saturday school and matches, but all are obliged to stay in for regular whole-school weekends, dedicated to community work or school-wide projects. Importantly, day pupils are fully integrated into the boarding houses, so each and every pupil feels fully part of this wonderfully close-knit community.
The house system is slightly different for boys and girls. The former spend their first year in a junior house, acclimatising and settling in before moving up to a senior house, and girls stick with one house throughout their Bryanston career (the school has found that the older girls naturally look after the Year 9s). Some boarding houses are up in the main building, while others are dotted around the estate (no more than a four-minute walk away), and although pupils and parents can express a preference, the final decision comes down to the head.
We had a look inside one of the girls’ boarding houses which was immaculate – gorgeous views with separate work rooms rather than bed/desks creating a healthy separation between work and sleep. Each three- or four-bed dorm has its own ensuite and sixth-formers have their own rooms. There are five girls’ and seven boys’ boarding houses, with about 15 pupils per year group across each house. Day pupils are integrated with boarders, with each allocated a work area. The boarding houses are a popular base during the day, with pupils popping back to work, relax or get a bite to eat.
School community
Pupil development is at the heart of everything at Bryanston. Tutors are matched individually and staff visit Year 8s at the prep to get to know them. Special training is given to all the staff to ensure their mentoring skills are exemplary. And there’s no resting on laurels – Mr Jones feels the provision can get even better. Though it’s hard to see how, as already the bonds between tutors and tutees are beyond impressive, often surviving beyond school.
Families are spread far and wide – children come from 90 different prep schools – though the local crowd is increasing since the merger with Bryanston Prep. About 17 per cent are from overseas, everywhere from Germany and Spain to Peru and Mongolia.
And finally...
Quirky works here because there’s no pressure to fit into a mould. The Bryanston Method not only serves to get pupils through their exams, but sets them up for a lifetime of making things happen for themselves – invaluable in today's fast-paced world. Busy, buzzy and a place where all talents are celebrated, Bryanston is a school that values each pupil’s journey, nurturing curiosity, cultivating independence, and inspiring them to challenge convention and be themselves.