"City schools are the best preparation for life"

“There aren’t many boarding schools right in the middle of vibrant cities. We’re surrounded by beautiful scenery in the South West and yet we’re only 15 minutes walk from all of the attractions of Bristol.

“A lot of boarding schools were founded in remote areas, deliberately so, so that the pupils are somewhere quiet to study without distraction. Or they grew in small market towns, particularly former coaching stops on major routes like Oundle and Marlborough. That might have been attractive in the 19th century, but now modern parents find city schools hugely appealing.

“Bristol is a fabulous place if you’re aged between 14 and 21. Everything is geared around you. Clifton Village and the Whiteladies Road have all that a young adult would want, from a 24/7 Sainsbury’s to a wide range of clubs, pubs, bars, restaurants and shops.

“There is more opportunity to get drunk but there’s no more temptation, indeed rather less. My experience of children in more rural schools is that they have to be incredibly ingenious in order to get alcohol and that’s worse because it occupies so much of their time thinking about it. In some schools they plan to break out after hours to go to nightclubs far away or hoard alcohol days in advance to get drunk on Saturday nights.

“But if there’s a wine bar less than 400 yards away where, for example, members of the Upper Sixth congregate on a Saturday evening, we know where they are and we know what they’re doing and that’s much safer and easier to manage. Also, children who live locally know where to go and where not to go and therefore how to avoid trouble. 

“In some senses there’s a less desperate need to go out and get drunk because you’ve only got to walk a few hundred yards to find lots of pubs, clubs and supermarkets selling alcohol. There are still a few parents who will baulk at that as being too cosmopolitan for their children, but more and more understand that it’s about managing risk and preparation for life and university.

“Old boys and girls of Clifton say that when they get to university the transition is easy for them. They arrive and say ‘this is what we’ve been doing for the last two years at Clifton’. If they go to London, Manchester, Liverpool, Oxford or Cambridge, they’re already familiar with the city environment and because we live cheek-by-jowl with Bristol University’s 4000 students, they understand student life too.

“We have one foot in Bristol, but then concentric circles of catchment areas across the world. We bring together a local, regional, national and global community of pupils and that’s an incredibly attractive mix. There are pupils here who live just minutes from the school and there are children from Holland, Russia, Latvia, Qatar, Hong Kong and Brunei, to name just a few.”

“At Clifton, we can offer everything. On-site, we have three rugby pitches, a gym, an indoor swimming pool, two sports halls and a racquets court; imagine having all that just two minutes from your bedroom. 

“Over the Suspension Bridge, we have a 100-acre site with an indoor area for tennis or netball, two floodlit Astroturf pitches, a new Third Generation artificial surface for rugby and football, a real tennis court, cross country courses and 17 rugby and soccer grass pitches. Pupils can jog across the bridge to warm up and the views across the Avon Gorge are amazing.

“Water-based sports are superbly provided for at the College. We have a boathouse on a lovely stretch of the Avon between Bristol and Bath, we sail on the Chew Valley reservoir and have a yacht in Plymouth.”

“Clifton has an extraordinary record in science teaching. The College’s first Head, John Percival, introduced bespoke science teaching and this was ground-breaking at the time. During the 1860s, most schools taught theology, classics and algebra, but very few focused on science.

“We have produced three Nobel prize winners, one each in chemistry, biology and economics and two directors of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. Maths and chemistry have been our two most popular subjects at A-level, which bucks the national trend, and we have sent large numbers of pupils to read engineering, medicine and science at university.

“There isn’t a school in the land that has a better resourced chemistry and physics department. I can say that with confidence because our Head of Science, Dr Tim Greene, used to teach at Oxford and Exeter Universities and is in a very good position to judge.

“Yes, of course. Music is part of the fabric of life at Clifton and we’re proud of that. At least half of our pupils play a musical instrument and we have a number of choirs, harmony groups and a huge variety of instrumental groups.

"As part of our plans for development, we’re rebuilding our music school to create a recording studio, rehearsal rooms and concert space, in addition to existing facilities. This will open in September 2009.

“The most popular university destinations are Oxford, Cambridge and London (especially UCL and Imperial, which are all in the global top ten, but we do have a lot of success in music, art and sports as well.”

“We are selective to a degree, but not to a great degree. We have a policy of taking siblings, even if parents have children of widely different abilities. Imagine the stability that that gives a family - one school run, one set of uniforms, the same term dates and teachers that you can get to know. 

“If a second or third child comes along and they’re not all that bright we’ll find things for them to do and aim to discover what they’re good at. It could be music, art, drama… or they might just be very nice people who enhance the life of the school by their presence. That’s quite rare these days.”