Surbiton High School

If you have a daughter who wants to be stretched but also wants to be known as a person, Surbiton High is the sort of school where both tend to happen. It is an independent day school for girls aged four to eighteen in Kingston upon Thames, with a co-educational prep at the younger end and a boys' preparatory school nearby, so families with children of both can often keep them on one footing. The school has a long memory: it opened in January 1884 with just eleven girls, the first school founded by the Church Schools Company, now part of United Learning, which makes it something of a flagship within that group.

The school keeps its Christian heritage while welcoming pupils of all faiths and backgrounds, and its own vision rests plainly on compassion and respect for others. Visitors tend to notice the same thing the school says of itself, girls who are ambitious and deeply proud to belong to a diverse and caring community. Alongside strong academic work there is a wide offer across music, drama, dance, sport and community partnerships, and pastoral care and wellbeing are given real weight rather than treated as an afterthought.

Surbiton High suits a girl who will throw herself into life beyond the timetable as readily as into her lessons, in a school that pays close attention to how she is doing day to day. Led since January 2025 by Principal Matthew Shoults, it is a place where breadth and warmth sit comfortably alongside ambition, and where a child is looked after as much as she is taught.