“Preparing boys for thriving in the real world”: Tonbridge has top review in Tatler Schools Guide
Tonbridge earns a glowing review in the Tatler Schools Guide 2024, which was published at the end of August.
Tatler magazine carries out a year-round programme of research, including in-person visits and in-depth questionnaires, in order to select (what it considers to be) the best 250 independent and prep schools in the UK.
Its latest Schools Guide (the 20th annual edition) highlights, for example, Tonbridge’s outstanding academic achievements and its record of boys progressing to top universities worldwide, as well as the Life Skills that are taught as part of the innovative Sixth Form Curriculum.
There are also mentions for the rapport between staff and pupils, the breadth of Co-Curricular activities, the quality of food and the popular House Music competition.
Tori Cadogan, Tatler’s Education Editor, writes: “Each year we shortlist 300 schools, travel 2,000 miles to tour them, and receive candid answers to nearly 2,500 questionnaires from pupils, parents and our schools before making our final selection.”
She adds: “Tatler schools offer so much more than exam results. Their pupils receive a holistic education with character development through collaboration, endeavour, leadership and creativity.”
Tonbridge’s Tatler Schools Guide review is as follows:
‘It just “gets” boys,’ one parent says. ‘How to educate them, how to help them grow into respectable young men, how to challenge them academically … It may not have the stereotypical reputation of the bigger names, but it’s just as good – if not better – because of this.’
High praise is almost universal from anyone with experience of this Kentish institution, whether they may be a current student, an Old Tonbridgian, a local family or even a visitor. (Recently, one such was particularly taken with its ‘pastoral strength’ and notable ‘lack of pretentiousness’, despite being ‘intellectually great’.)
And evidently, under the Tonbridge regime, its charges prosper. Last year’s GCSE results were among its best-ever (a whopping 97 per cent of entries were graded 9-7), and the first cohort of youngsters to complete its new, tailored, Sixth Form Curriculum achieved stellar A-level results, with 107 making a clean sweep of A*s and As.
But they’ll go off to top universities – Oxbridge, Harvard and MIT to name but a few – with a lot more under their belts than simple good grades, as the Curriculum now includes a Life Skills component – covering everything from cookery and personal finance to public speaking and yoga – to prepare the boys for continued thriving in the real world.
Not that they’re in any rush to leave. Pupils are quick to tell us how much they love it here, not least for the ‘amazing’ chicken katsu curry, the House Music event, the close staff-to-pupils relationship, the abundance of exciting activities on offer – and the time to ‘have a go at them all’.
