Imagine an education that would give your child a broad curriculum that promotes knowledge and confidence and a co-curricular timetable that develops life skills and lifelong friendships. You would think any school would be hard-pressed to deliver on all those aspects.
Well, think again. Stonyhurst is the only school in the county to feature in Tatler’s Schools Guide and where pupils aged 3-18 years are given opportunities in abundance, enabling them to experience all that the school has to offer in terms of academic development as well as cultural, artistic, charitable, and sporting progression.
Stonyhurst is in a beautiful part of the Ribble Valley with more than 430 years of tradition. Children attend from all over the world, from Mexico, Madrid, and Hong Kong, to name but a few. Having a dynamic, broad outlook has always been part of the Stonyhurst Jesuit tradition. For local Lancashire families, Stonyhurst gives parents the opportunity to send their child to a globally diverse school with a strong family identity and alumni network. Children boarding at Stonyhurst experience a seven-day-a-week school, a true home-from-home where they learn to live with others, in a community where diversity is celebrated, tolerance is promoted, and an ethical and spiritual core is at the heart.
The school offers a broad and balanced curriculum which, from Years 5 and 6, are taught by subject specialists. For example, timetabled drama, swimming, dance, instrumental music, drama, French, Spanish, German, and Latin are all part of our curriculum. Stonyhurst, therefore, sees a good number of pupils joining at this stage in their education. In the College, three routes of study, including the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge Technical Diploma are offered, in addition to traditional A levels, enabling the school to cater to a wide range of learning styles and interests.
Stonyhurst’s campus and facilities support its broad curriculum, where pupils have access to its magnificent historical museum and archives, the oldest collection of museum objects in the English-speaking world, in addition to an operational observatory, world-class tennis dome, 9-hole golf course, swimming pool, dance studio, Astroturf, and professional on-site theatres. A Jesuit education at Stonyhurst is about the formation of the whole person, both inside the classroom and more broadly through the co-curricular experiences that help young people to form their characters and identify their purpose in life.
As a leading independent school, Stonyhurst has been educating girls alongside boys for more than two decades. At Stonyhurst parity is ensured across the board in terms of opportunities. Girls’ sport is very robust – there is a real girls’ sporting culture that has been developed over the years with one of the school’s Year 13 girls recently representing England in the Women’s Six Nations Rugby squad.
Children thrive in a highly creative learning environment that prolongs their childhood in the most positive sense at Stonyhurst’s Prep School. For children joining from the state sector, it provides a much cherished ‘middle school’ option, (Stonyhurst St Mary’s Hall goes up to Year 8) to allow the children to make a much happier transition from junior to senior education.
There is so much more to explore beyond the four walls of a classroom and Stonyhurst has both the appetite and expertise to maximise every opportunity for every child. By nurturing well-rounded individuals, Stonyhurst prepares its pupils to thrive in all aspects of life and to make a positive impact on their communities by becoming ‘men and women for others’.