Trinity School

If your son is the kind who wants to be busy, the sort who'll happily go from a maths lesson to choir to a match without coming up for air, Trinity is a school built for exactly that. It is an academically selective day school for boys in Shirley Park, Croydon, taking them from ten to eighteen with a co-educational sixth form. The school has a long memory, having opened in 1882 as Whitgift Middle School, taken the name Trinity in 1954 and settled at its present site in 1965. It belongs to the Whitgift Foundation, and from September 2027 it will admit girls into Years 6 and 7, opening co-education through every year group.

Music and sport run deep here. Every pupil learns an instrument, and there is a Trinity-Steinway Scholarship, run with Steinway & Sons and the Royal College of Music, for talented young pianists. The Good Schools Guide points to the school's "exceptional co-curricular opportunities," and a gentle Christian ethos sits underneath it all. Parents tend to notice the warmth of the place, the way boys back each other and respect their differences rather than compete to stand out.

This is a full, lively school, and it rewards a boy who wants to throw himself into music, sport or some other pursuit alongside demanding academic work, rather than one after a quiet life. Led since September 2016 by headmaster Alasdair Kennedy, Trinity suits the curious, sociable son who'll be happiest with plenty to get stuck into and good company to do it with.