Mill Hill School A GSG School

Other features

All-through school (for example 3-18 years). - An all-through school covers junior and senior education. It may start at 3 or 4, or later, and continue through to 16 or 18. Some all-through schools set exams at 11 or 13 that pupils must pass to move on.

What The Good Schools Guide says

Head

Since 2023, David Benson MA, previously (founding) principal of Kensington Aldridge Academy (KAA). Educated at St Paul's and a graduate of Cambridge, Mr Benson joined Teach First from university and has spent the best part of the last 20 years in London state schools, most recently at KAA, where he saw the school through from one year group initially to the wildly successful 1,300-strong community it is now. His appointment to Mill Hill marks his entrée into the independent sector, though he was schooled in it and has written for national media in support of partnerships between independent and state schools. Mr Benson is married with two school-age children, a dog and a cat who just about tolerate each other. Any spare time might find him playing or watching cricket or rugby.

Entrance

At 13+, 176 enter – including 130 moving up from the prep school, Belmont, 70 of whom join in year 7. Common Entrance no longer required for those transferring, but the 140 or so who apply for 30-40 available year 9 slots are pre-tested in year 6 (by computerised tests and interview). Most stay on for sixth form, when entrance for existing students in line with external candidates but evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Incomers – who are interviewed and provide references – need at least two grade 7s and three grade 6s at GCSE (with at least grade 5s in English and maths); some A level subjects have their own additional entrance criteria. Overseas candidates and anyone else not necessarily having the range or number of required GCSEs will be considered on their individual merits. Students on elite sports programmes can now apply for a level 3 BTEC in sport, for which they will need five GCSEs at grade 5.

Exit

No-one left after GCSE in 2023. At sixth form, top destinations include both Nottingham universities, Leeds and Exeter; two to Oxbridge in 2023 and a whopping 22 medics, plus 11 overseas, mostly to the US but a sprinkling to Canada, Israel and France. Subject choice unusually wide-ranging, from traditional professions like law and journalism to aeronautics and film and directing.

Latest results

In 2023, 58 per cent 9-7 at GCSE; 37 per cent A*/A at A level (67 per cent A*-B). In 2019 (the last pre-pandemic results), 57 per cent 9-7 at GCSE; 35 per cent A*/A at A level.

Teaching and learning

Very solid exam results throughout. No weak spots. The previous head rethought the timetable, reducing lessons from 50 to 40 minutes to aid concentration and allow an extra period in the day. At GCSE, English (lang and lit), maths and science (just under half take all three) are the compulsory core, with French, German and Spanish the language selection. After that, as well at the regular range of humanities, students can opt for classical civilisaton, computer science, PE, music, DT and ICT. At A Level, popular choices include business, economics, geography and psychology. The EPQ is available but not widely taken as the most academically able are steered to a subject-specific Oxbridge preparation programme.

Teaching overall considered challenging and stimulating, and warm and supportive relationships between staff and pupils encourage the shy or reticent to find their voice. ‘Extension’ supplied by challenging in-class work, regular lectures, debates, workshops and participation in the Sir James Murray Society (where a recent student-led debate analysed the statement ‘We should not be at the mercy of our emotions’). The particularly able or interested are given mentoring and regular challenges. ‘There are many bright, motivated pupils and I’ve seen that they stretch them in the right way,’ said one mother. Some parents, however, (and the last school inspectors) consider not every lesson is as exciting as it might be and marking could occasionally be more focused to maximise progress.

Learning support and SEN

SEN is a strength, with a full team including head of learning support, two part-time teachers and four assistants, who occupy four well-resourced rooms and oversee individual and small-group support as well as liaising closely with teachers to ensure they receive appropriate intervention in lessons. English language instruction for international students is supportive and positive, and those we spoke to, who’d often started out with very basic skills, had acquired a strong command of the language.

The arts and extracurricular

Music, art and drama are vibrant. Energetic participation in music at individual and group level. Singing notably strong (‘Mill Hill,’ says a recent magazine entry correctly, ‘is a school that sings’), and there is a multitude of opportunities to give voice, from the ‘Big Sing’ building community spirit with an inspiring new hymn book, to the Farrow singing competition and the annual school musical. School orchestra performs significant works, such as Vivaldi’s Gloria, and future maestri and maestre encouraged with annual composition prize. Instrumentalists participate in instrumental competitions, chamber groups, masterclasses, jazz soirée and twice-weekly informal coffee concerts, while school clubs extend performance opportunities with jazz band, percussion, shout band, music tech, wind band and ukulele. Music scholars – who’ve gone on to glory in the National Youth Orchestra, National Choir and National German Music competition – get specialist attention, with masterclasses taken at the Junior Guildhall. ‘The music department is like an extension of my family,’ said one. ‘They’ve supported and encouraged me in everything I’ve done.’

Drama lively, with a carousel of theatre trips, including to productions featuring Old Millhillians. Art and DT have spacious, well-equipped space, and art extends well beyond the studio with year 9’s self-portrait ceramic heads – à la Antony Gormley – on show in the school chapel to become a focus for services and sixth formers’ work vaunted in dedicated private view.

Creative thinking encouraged for all in the Big Idea, an inter-house competition to improve school life assessed by Dragons’ Den-type finale. More than 150 clubs and activities cater to virtually every interest, from feminism and Model United Nations to horticulture, Hispanic theatre and touch-typing. CCF particularly strong with about 150 smartly clad cadets filling the campus after lessons, and annual general inspection, chapel service, and holiday camps. Endless relay of work-related and pleasure trips – business studies to China, physics to CERN, DT to Jaguar Land Rover, ski trip to USA. Annual summer-term activities week offers a further multitude of adventures to expand the mind. ‘There’s so much to do here, it sometimes feels like it’s hard to fit it all in,’ said one year 10.

Sport

Mill Hill has a well-deserved reputation for developing the whole pupil through its outstanding extracurricular offering, but sport is the jewel in the crown. As one Oxford-bound sixth former accurately put it, ‘Sport here is huge.’

The department has recently been boosted by the catch-your-breath energy of director of sport and the introduction of 11 impressive new coaches (including two professional women rugby players from Saracens Women). National aspirations abound. Until a few years ago, the school had a Saturday timetable combining lessons and sports fixtures, but the academic side is now confined to GCSE and A level workshops and weekends (including Sundays) have been freed for fixtures. Virtually all participate in competition, with 95 per cent of year 9s involved in a school team. Main boys’ sports are rugby (with national level players), hockey, football and cricket. Girls’ sport as strong as the boys’, and girls play hockey, netball, rounders and cricket (with old girl Sophia Dunkley recently selected for the England squad), but not football. Girls, like the boys, also excel at fives, with U14 and U15 players ranking in the top 10 in the country. Girls’ aspirations and achievements recognised in girls’ sports dinner, and (perhaps!) encouraged by mums’ netball competition.

Talented sportsmen and women – identified through sports scholarships at 13 and 16 and now eligible to take up a BTEC in sport since 2023 – are carefully nurtured (with specialist instruction in nutrition, strength and conditioning, video analysis, golf and tennis academies), and pupils participate at high competitive level in individual sports including riding (at nearby stable), shooting, golf, tennis, bouldering (GB junior team member) and sailing. Less common team sports like basketball and volleyball (in which the school recently fielded a team in the England volleyball U18 national championships) offer a broad scope for enthusiasm. Excellent facilities for everything with a multitude of pitches (including AstroTurf), courts, golf centre and pool, and impressive sports trips (rugby to Japan, for example) provide exceptional opportunities, particularly for what is predominantly a day school.

Boarders

Mill Hill started life as a boarding school, but as local boarding teetered towards extinction, a sustained campaign abroad led to a powerful resurgence. Now boarding houses are full again with international as well as weekly boarders. Five boarding houses (girls-only, boys-only and mixed), a short walk from the main buildings, are comfortable and up to date, furnished with triple, double and single bedrooms (depending on seniority). Meals are taken in the school dining room, but each house has a kitchen for snacks. International boarders appreciate the school’s proximity to central London – ‘We love going shopping on the weekends,’ said one – and its cosmopolitan atmosphere. ‘Before I came here, I went to a boarding school in the country where I was the only non-English pupil; I felt very uncomfortable,’ commented one. ‘I am much happier here.’

Ethos and heritage

Founded in 1807 by non-conformist reformers, the Mill Hill School Foundation now encompasses a family of schools – pre-prep (Grimsdell), prep school (Belmont), and international boarding (The Mount, Mill Hill International) – plus, more recently, it has acquired Cobham Hall School, Lyonsdown School and Keble Prep. Idea is to help provide a smooth transition to the senior school. Though only half an hour from central London, the schools offer a semi-rural refuge of green and pleasant space and fresh country air. Now overseen by a single CEO, the foundation schools share a united mission – to produce ‘a strong sense of community in which the academic and co-curricular provide a challenging and stimulating environment in which to learn the skills which play a key part in future success and happiness’. ‘The modern working world is not just about exams,’ in the words of the previous head. ‘Employers today are looking for the ability to lead, to tackle challenges, to live with integrity, honesty and fairness.’

If a physical environment can contribute to these objectives, then pupils here are particularly blessed. The original school house of 1825 – by London Royal Exchange architect Sir William Tite – provides an elegant neoclassical centre, where pupils meet for meals in the tall-windowed dining hall. This is complemented by an impressive catalogue of satellite buildings, ranging from the Basil Champneys-designed chapel with its soaring coffered ceiling to the delightful Arts and Crafts library and thoroughly modernist humanities and modern languages building. The gardens, too, are undoubtedly ‘worth a detour’, containing specimens originally planted by renowned 18th-century botanist Peter Collinson, including Britain’s first hydrangea.

Mill Hill originated as an all-boys boarding school, introducing the first girls into the sixth form in the 1970s; today, it’s primarily a coeducational day school (with full and weekly boarding also available), but the girl-boy balance remains weighted two-thirds in favour of boys. ‘You notice it, but it’s never an issue,’ says one girl. Some subjects (like science and history) still boy-dominated, but languages, maths and English fairly evenly split. ‘It’s realistic, like in the real world,’ said a pupil. Both sexes feel the mix works. ‘There’s a really good relationship between the boys and the girls,’ said one boy. ‘It’s a lot more relaxed, less intense in the classroom,’ said a girl – ‘competitive, but in a healthy way.’

Numbers continue to grow and in 2014 Mill Hill launched The Mount, Mill Hill International, its own self-contained international school, where students from nearly 30 countries (including the UK) come to sit GCSEs (in one year or two) or undertake an intensive English programme, in many instances proceeding to the main school for sixth form. Taught in their own attractive building (a former girls’ school) less than half a mile away, pupils here use many of the main school facilities and boarders share boarding houses.

Still a non-conformist Christian foundation with timetabled weekly chapel, today the school welcomes all faiths and none. ‘Giving back’, however, remains very much part of the ethos and pupils are involved in regular fundraising activities and community action, much of it delivered through the school-wide charity committee. Strong links, too, with the London Academy of Excellence, a state sixth-form college in Tottenham, and neighbouring girls’ comprehensive Copthall School, who share joint enrichment activities, and with overseas partnership schools in Tamil Nadu and Zambia.

Pupils generally happy and upbeat. ‘It’s a very happy place,’ commented more than one parent – and few complaints even on traditional peeves. ‘You’re supposed to hate the food, but the food is really good here,’ said one year 11, after being pressed on any dislikes.

Pastoral care, inclusivity and discipline

Eighty-five per cent of pupils arrive daily and are looked after through a day-house system, with eight mixed houses of 80-90, each with a games room, quiet study room, lockers and housemaster or mistress’s office. House tutors take responsibility for the pastoral care of about 15 pupils. Wellbeing very high on the agenda, and a recently opened wellbeing wing is now its hub, home to two school counsellors, the director of PSHE, and head of pupil development, as well as the wellbeing room, a comfortably furnished, plant-filled space with soothing views of the rolling hills beyond. Mill Hill Minds, the student-led society formed to raise awareness of mental health, campaigned for the centre to be moved from a distant outpost. ‘It used to be quite isolated, now there’s a safe space where you can come at lunch, before school and after school.’ Pupils very much involved in its operation, interviewing, for example, the new school counsellor. Mental health also promoted through wellbeing week and cross-school endeavours such as the Mill Hill Minds mural painted by pupils throughout the school.

Fairly traditional approach in other matters, so head boy and girl, heads of houses, smart uniform (business black for sixth formers, navy blue and tartan for younger years) and formal manners. (‘Sorry, sir’ was immediately forthcoming as we squeezed past a sixth former on a staircase.) Upper sixth given the freedom to leave at 12.30, timetable permitting, and, for those with a licence, parking is permitted.

Pupils and parents

An extensive bus route fetches and carries day pupils from affluent homes in a large swathe of north London. Eighty per cent come from no further than Hampstead, with outliers arriving from St John’s Wood, Potters Bar and Northwood. Quite a few have a long-time family link with the school, and quite a few do the full stretch from nursery to 18. Pupils are confident, articulate and poised, very much a credit to the school’s holistic approach.

Money matters

Scholarships and exhibitions (academic, sports, music, drama, art and design technology), available at 13 and 16, currently limited to 10 per cent fee reduction (though this is under review), but bursaries (for new entrants and those experiencing hardship) can make this up to 100 per cent. Some extra funding, too, for non-compulsory trips, courtesy of the generous Old Millhillians Association.

The last word

A vibrant, buzzing school, with a solid academic underpinning and an outstanding extracurricular programme producing confident, articulate, mature young people, who start adult life solidly grounded, positive and well informed. ‘A very happy place to be’ is the consensus of parents and pupils.

Special Education Needs

Who came from where