WHAT? WHERE?

Kent College, Pembury, is an independent day and boarding school from 3-18, consisting of Forest Explorers Nursery, the Prep School and the Senior School. Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and 2 are co-ed, with boys able to join Year 3 from this September (2024) as the Prep School gradually becomes a co-educational school by 2027.

The Senior School and Sixth Form is girls only and has around 400 day and boarding pupils, aged between 11-18. Just outside Pembury, and only moments from the A21, this school has a countryside setting and yet remains very accessible.

Having long enjoyed a reputation for being very caring and nurturing, in recent years KC has also experienced something of a Renaissance, both in terms of investing in a pile of stonkingly good facilities, and a rise in impressive exam results.

And this is from a school that prides itself on placing as much emphasis on personal growth and extra-curricular activities as it does academic studies.

FACILTIES

The school is set in a rural 75 acres, with sweeping views, and beautiful grounds that somehow manage to fit in so many buildings and facilities while still feeling compact and cosy.

New for 2023, their impressive pool is now open and being enjoyed by KC pupils and RTW Monson squad and swim school. The swimming club provides expert guidance for pupils from Nursery all the way through to Sixth Form. From learning to swim, expanding their wellbeing and fitness skills to training to an elite level.

SPORTS

In the grounds there’s the usual tennis, netball courts, pitches for athletics and cricket (so popular with girls now – no one plays rounders any more), as well as a cross-country track, fitness/gym and dance studio.

The school has undergone an ambitious Sports development project and there’s evidence of this everywhere. From the Sports Hall, (above) to the All-Weather astroturf pitch (below). And I’ve heard word of a fair flock of Sports Scholars joining in the last few years.

However the school is quick to point out you don’t have to be games-mad to get involved and keep active here – in fact one of KC’s big missions is to get all girls enjoying activities of their own choice. As well as the usual sports clubs there’s trampolining, horse-riding, gymnastics and football. No one is getting bored any time soon.

MUSIC & ARTS

The Susanna Wesley Library & Arts Centre is one of the newer buildings and it’s fairly impressive. There’s a reception desk, full-time librarian, over 11,000 fiction and non-fiction books (yes, I counted) and 18 computers and 15 laptops. I think it’s a brilliant strategy to link books and art together like this – in an ‘artistic space’ way – recognising that reading is also a creative exercise.

Upstairs the Art Department is comprised of three large and light-filled studios which include separate working areas for GCSE and A-Level pupils. Anyone taking Art A Level gets an allocated individual working space for the duration of the two year course.

Music is big here too – and the Music Centre is used by both Prep and Senior pupils with opportunities to learn pretty much any instrument (additional fees apply for lessons).

There are choirs for Year 7 and Year 9, a Lower School Chamber choir as well as a School Chamber choir, Orchestra, String Ensemble and Band clubs. Throughout the year there is a celebration of all things musical with an Opera Gala Evening, Open Mic Night as well as a fiercely fought House Music.

DRAMA

Both the Whole School and Lower School productions are BIG news here – with performances alternating between plays and musicals year on year. The older girls take on meaty subjects, like the musical masterpiece, Sweeney Todd (pun fully intended). The Y7 – Y9s did a spiffingly good stab at Daisy Pulls it Off (pictured below).

Larger productions like these (sometimes in collaboration with boys schools) are staged in the £1m state-of-the-art Countess of Wessex Theatre (she’s an ex-pupil and re-opened the theatre in 2012) which seats a maximum capacity of 250 – and run for a full week.

FOOD TECH & TEXTILES

The Food Tech department is good – the school even boasts a Junior Masterchef winner! New for 2024 – pupils can take a Food Science and Nutrition (Level 3) Diploma.

Textiles is popular and offered as a stand-alone GCSE. K.C. hosts the annual Young Fashion Designer UK competition in which local judges from the fashion industry select the winners. It’s a popular competition, open to pupils from schools across the country, and attracts hundreds of entrants every year.

ACADEMIC RESULTS

The school is producing impressive academic results and now has a reputation for consistently high standards (it goes without saying 100 % exam pass rate).

In 2023, the latest A Level and GCSE results were strong, especially considering the backdrop of returning to pre-Covid criteria. Nearly 15% of A Level students were awarded the equivalent of three or more A*s and almost a third achieved straight A* and A grades. Over half of all grades awarded were A*-A.

But we live in a county with great all-girl grammar schools, so why pay the fees? Well here’s the rub. What sets this school apart is the pretty impressive Value Added.

What’s ‘Value Added’? I hear you cry. Well it stands to reason that a school which only accepts the highest achieving students will get the highest exam results.

Much more impressive is the school where a pupil comes out with a higher grade than they were predicted – and this is measured with ‘Value Added’. KC is in the top 7 per cent of schools in the UK for Value Added at GCSE – and the actual highest in the UK for English. (Here, on average girls achieve at least one grade higher across all subjects at GCSE than predicted on entry.)

THE HEAD

Katrina Handford took over the headship at Kent College Pembury in January 2022, making her move from Nottingham Girls’ High School. She’s passionate and kind – totally approachable – keen to operate an open door policy for the girls as much as the parents. Very down-to-earth, there’s not a jot of old school pomp or grandeur about her (which makes her a pretty good role model for the modern woman).

Handford is idealistic too – we talk about how a quality education is about so much more than just exams. She sees her role as helping to educate the next generation so they reflect on and carve out their place within the global community. These pupils are the future – the teachers, the artists, the doctors, the charity workers and business entrepreneurs that will shape our world tomorrow and she does not take her responsibility lightly.

Learning, insists Handford, needs to be relevant. In every lesson. She wants to take the school Methodist philosophy of ‘Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can’ (more on this below) and build a daily strategy for how pupils can make this their reality. So that K.C pupils leave as rounded ‘global citizens’.

PASTORAL CARE

Kent College has got something of a reputation for its strong pastoral offering. This is centred around small tutor groups in which you start and end the day plus continuity of care with those Tutors over a number of years, which leads to strong relationship building. Each year group also has its own head of Pastoral Care, creating an environment where pupils can find a strong support structure, should they need it.

SIXTH FORM

Tilley House is the main base for the Sixth Form. It provides personal study rooms, plus there is a comfortable common room with a constant supply of tea, coffee, toast, fruit and biscuits.

In addition to three or four A Levels and/or BTECs, students will complete an independent research project with a final presentation, a period of work experience and community work.

Another element that sets the Sixth Form offering apart here is the Honours Programme, which enables pupils to broaden their horizons, gain expertise and practical experience (that will go down well on both future uni and job applications). Each student is able to choose a pathway that plays to their strengths and allows them to make the most of the myriad opportunities in the Sixth Form.

Students will also explore a single or double Honours in one or more of the following five key skills areas: Leadership and Personal Development through the Ivy House Award, Research Skills by completing the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), the STEM Crest Award, Entrepreneurship (through designing and setting up a small business) and in the Conservatoire Programme to promote creativity and performance in the fields of Theatre, Textiles, the Arts, Music and Food Science.

All this makes the Sixth Form offering here a pretty competitive one.

LITTLIES

There’s a prep school on the same site, which is co-ed in Forest Explorers Nursery, Reception, Year 1 & 2 and which shares many of the Senior School facilities, read the Muddy Review here.

Little ones can join the Prep School in the term of their third birthday. In September 2020, for the first time ever, boys could also join in the Nursery. The school will continue this policy so every year boys will be introduced gradually, meaning by 2027 the school will be fully co-ed throughout.

USP & QUIRKS

Definitely a USP is the Outdoor Learning at KC. This includes a quite exceptional outdoor obstacle course, called the Confidence Course, that’s probably the biggest of its kind in West Kent, if not the whole of the county.

And the girls are encouraged to use it on extra-curricular days, after school and clubs. There are walls, balance beams, a postman’s walk, monkey bars, a bouldering wall, zip wire and 30ft abseil tree (see pics above and below). Weeeeeeeee!

Also, less of a quirk and more the unique defining factor that underpins every element of life at K.C, is the Methodist school ideology (pupils can have any faith) which basically means that kindness, tolerance and a huge appreciation for just how lucky you are is the practical ethos running through everything.

The Methodist Wesley philosophy is found around the school

The head, Katrina Handford, says she wants to take this school culture and apply the principles of Effective Altruism to it. Everyone wants to do good, but many ways of doing good are ineffective – the EA movement arose out of a desire to make sure that attempts to do good actually work. In short, you take a practical and strategic approach – and this is something they want all girls to carry with them all their lives.

WHAT ELSE?

Another USP of this school is their initiative called Sport and Wellbeing – the brain-child of Director of Sport, Mrs Hughes.

Basically every single week, each year group has an afternoon – in addition to the PE already on the curriculum – where they can enjoy a physical or wellbeing activity of their own choosing. I’m talking Outdoor Adventure (on that zip-wire!), Team Sports, Welly Walks or even Yoga, Fun Choir or Climbing Wall (the list goes on).

This is not about being super sporty – just healthy and happy. In the UK a mere 10 per cent of girls aged between 11 and 18 get enough physical activity – exactly half the figure for boys. I know, shocking, right? So anything that encourages them to be active and away from desks for an additional afternoon a week is a good initiative.

WRAP AROUND CARE & BOARDING

There are around 70 UK and international boarders plus many more flexi-boarders (anything from 10-20 per week).

As well as all the many, many extra curricular clubs, there’s Breakfast Club available from 7.30 (for a fee) and After School Care until 5.30pm every day (free of charge) – pupils can stay later (for a fee) and have supper at the school.

WORD ON THE GROUND

‘Confidence’ is a word that gets mentioned a lot – this school teaches girls to be open-minded and believe they can do anything, but that they should be thoughtful of others too. There’s a big, but subtle, sense of being appreciative of their own privilege – perhaps something that’s rarer than it should be at independent schools. Mums I have spoken to with girls at K.C. were very happy with their daughter’s achievements academically but said they didn’t feel the school was too ‘pushy’ in this area.

FEES

In-line with girls schools in the area. Day pupils in the senior school pay £8,460 per term, Sixth Formers £9,040. Weekly boarders pay £11,500 and full boarders pay £13,500. Flexi-Boarding (supper and breakfast included), £60 per night. Scholarships and Bursaries are available.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

Good for: If you want to bring out your child’s academic potential without an exam factory environment (or you don’t believe in tutoring them to within an inch of their lives) then you’ll love the Value Added here. Obviously perfect for anyone that thrives on performance and creative arts – although the variety of extra-curricular opportunities means it would be almost impossible not to find something to enjoy. Sports is really strong here too, but being sporty or competitive is by no means a prerequisite. The school doesn’t produce a ‘type’ – girls are still very free to be who they want to be.

Not for: Clearly you’ll be opting for single-sex education here, and even the Sixth Form remains all-girl, unlike some other independent or State schools in the area that accept boys in the older years. This is not, nor has it ever been, a jolly hockey sticks kind of school – so if you want pomp and ceremony definitely look elsewhere.

Have a look for yourself: KC runs open mornings throughout the year, please click here for the next available one to book.

Please email admissions@kentcollege.kent.sch.uk to book.

Kent College Pembury, Old Church Road, Pembury, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN2 4AX, Tel: 01892 820218, kent-college.co.uk

Kent College, Pembury

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