Monkton Combe School A GSG School

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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.

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What The Good Schools Guide says

Principal

Since 2016, Christopher Wheeler BA PGCE, formerly principal and CEO at Hillcrest International School in Kenya and before that, head at St Christopher’s in Hove. Six weeks after his arrival in Mombasa, the Westgate shopping mall was attacked and international schools were put on high alert. Following suggestions that he undergo weapons training and come armed to school, home beckoned. Was originally introduced to teaching by an inspirational English teacher while a pupil at Winchester. With three siblings having attended different public schools, he has a keen sense of the importance of a school being the right fit for a child.

Quite the charismatic head, his prize-giving speeches – which can involve anything from videos of throwing staff into lakes and entrances in golf buggies to renditions of the Les Mis smash One Day More – have become the stuff of YouTube legend. He sees this as a very public display of the school tagline, ‘Monkton thinks differently’, which, he says, ‘is in our DNA’. He is a strong character with a firm handshake and an even firmer grasp on his vision for the school, centred around community and faith. Parents describe him as having ‘a good heart’ and ‘a strong moral compass’.

He moved years 7 and 8 from Monkton senior to the prep in the firm belief that children aged 11-13 fit better in the prep school system. A commitment to sustaining the 13+ transfer was a contributing factor to his driving through the recent acquisition of All Hallows prep school.

He clearly knows the pupils – even down to their preferred instruments, we noted, when talking to one in passing. The walls in and around his office are adorned with pupils’ artwork, with a story of triumph over adversity to match most. Parents agree that he is a ‘caring’ head, ‘who tries to engage with pupils at every level’. ‘He knows to address teenage boys side-on,’ added one parent knowingly.

He is an ISI inspector, something he recommends for all heads, stating, ‘It’s good to get under the skin of other schools.’

Entrance

About half come from Monkton Prep, where there is a through offer. A few also from All Hallows Prep, recently merged with Monkton. For external entry into year 9, assessment day includes interview, team tasks, problem solving and creative thinking. CAT4 sought from previous school, and places may not be offered for scores below 90. School currently oversubscribed and, for the first time, operates a waiting list.

More joiners than leavers into sixth form, making this the largest cohort in the school. At least six GCSEs at grade 6 or above required. Hopefuls undertake online assessment and submit report and reference from current school.

Exit

Between 10 and 15 per cent leave after GCSEs, most to local state schools, with a few others to schools offering IB. The vast majority move on to university, and of those, 60 per cent to Russell Group including Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds and Exeter. One to Cambridge in 2023. Popular courses include those related to English, history, sports science, architecture, business, biological sciences and music. Gap years are popular, with a number choosing to volunteer in schools, hospitals and community projects.

Latest results

In 2023, 51 per cent 9-7 at GCSE; 31 per cent A*/A at A level (64 per cent A*-B). In 2019 (the last pre-pandemic results), 59 per cent 9-7 at GCSE; 42 per cent A*/A at A level (72 per cent A*-B).

Teaching and learning

‘Academically, we focus on staff asking questions rather than giving answers,’ says head. This was certainly in evidence in the English class we sat in on, where a class of year 10 students were being asked to grapple with Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’, in a post-colonial era. The science class was equally probing, with Bunsen burners at full pelt to test Niels Bohr’s atomic model. Two sciences are recommended at GCSE, alongside maths, English and six other choices. History pupils get to re-enact the Battle of Arnhem on the front lawns, and there is imaginative use of upside-down tables in the classroom to simulate trench warfare.

Spanish, French, Mandarin and Latin offered at GCSE, alongside photography and theology, philosophy and ethics. Business is one of the most popular options. All study personal development and religious studies.

In sixth form, majority take three A levels plus EPQ. A good range of options available, from classics and Latin to music technology and 3D design. Academic clubs and societies for those wanting that bit more, including an economic society run in collaboration with other schools. School trips are on offer, with the Chalk Valley Festival covering ‘all things history’, and further afield, to Berlin and CERN.

Pupils see their tutors in weekly one-to-one meetings. After the initial allocation, there is an option to change tutor after the first year if there is an alternative that may be a better fit. Additional support is available through ‘voluntaries‘, drop-in sessions offered each week for every subject.

In keeping with the school ethos of students asking questions of themselves, they write their own reports (alongside feedback from teachers). One said, ‘It helped me think about what I’d done, to look at past experiences and learn from them.’ We were equally pleased to hear from the parent whose son, we were told, had written himself ‘an outrageous report’.

Teachers come in for general praise, with one parent noting, ‘All are good, some are outstanding.’ Parents state that those who are academically able, but who might happily slip under the radar, are picked up and pushed.

Historically, the school has had a reputation for being less academic than local counterparts, but parents think this unfair. ‘We’re up there with the best non-selective schools in Bath but no-one knows about it,’ says one, while another is convinced that the school offers an equally strong chance of achieving good grades. Head agrees that results are not shouted about but that the emphasis should be on celebrating the individual stories behind each success. ‘If you get too into the data, you lose the individual.’

Learning support and SEN

A team of three supports a small number of pupils with ongoing learning needs, but no provisions for those with EHCPs requiring in-class support. Weekly one-to-one sessions for those with dyslexia or dyspraxia, although one parent said it was the English department who helped their dyslexic daughter achieve a good GCSE without the need for additional sessions (with extra time). Help on timetabling or more organisational issues also on offer. Assessments made where appropriate. School sees its role as providing scaffolding support, to encourage a return to independent learning, rather than permanent assistance.

The arts and extracurricular

Musicians are well served by a modern music centre, housing a performance space designed with acoustics in mind, numerous practice rooms and a soundproof recording studio and production suite. Plenty of options for activities, ranging from the 50-strong orchestra to the gospel choir and school of rock, and an array of different instruments on offer for percussionists, including the marimba we saw – an enormous xylophone, to the uninitiated. Plenty of plays, musicals and informal drama performances throughout the year (‘I need to learn to say no to things,’ confided one student), with our tour guides very pleased to have secured tickets for that week’s production of Chicago. Double drama and music lessons each week in year 9. Despite the number of drama and music scholars both running into double figures, school told us, ‘We are not here to train musicians and actors, it’s about having fun too.’

DT has been replaced by 3D design and takes up one area of the newish art building, while art, textiles and a photography room, complete with a bank of computers and professional lighting, sit in the other. Sixth form art students have their own desks in segregated areas in which to store their work in progress. The area has a well-loved, collective feel to it despite hopeful entreaties to leave the area tidy. Some impressive structures in the 3D studios, with GCSE students working on projects as diverse as a reconstructed skateboard, table, and a mesh basque. Good take-up for 3D design at both GCSE and A level.

A mixture of activities on offer on Wednesday afternoons. Year 9 can try their hand at subjects not on the set timetable, including dance, a Dragons’ Den type business option, CCF for year 10 and enrichment activities for sixth form. Large take up for DofE, and a year 10 team entered into the Ten Tors challenge each year.

Sport

Facilities are good, with an indoor sports centre, hockey Astro, tennis and squash courts and one of the country’s loveliest cricket pitches, according to Wisden. Additional facilities available at Monkton Prep, although a few mumbles from pupils on the length of time it can take to walk there. All the traditional sports on offer during two sessions a week, plus rowing, with boats, access to two boathouses and a suite of ergo machines. A new head of rugby with ties to the Bath rugby development setup has upped the ante for elite players, to the approval of parents. School, with the help of parents, finds a way to get sporting stars to county, club or elite events, many of which are run out of nearby Bath University.

Sports scholarships have been rebranded into a sporting excellence programme, which now extends to sports including swimming, rowing, and biathlon. But beyond the elite, there are two teams per year group in hockey, rugby (two teams across sixth form), rowing, cricket, netball and tennis, meaning there is the chance to compete for all who want to. ‘There is a team for everybody.’

Boarders

Roughly half board in year 9, rising to three-quarters by sixth form. Boarding being pushed hard – to the slight consternation of one day parent – and chances are a new boarding house will be built in the next few years. Three boys’ and three girls’ houses. Most share, with no apparent hierarchy of rooms, and different age groups on the same corridor. Rooms in the boys’ house we saw were stereotypically devoid of soft furnishings (not so in the girls’ houses, we were told), but – more surprisingly – extremely tidy. ‘There is an expectation of respect,’ said one houseparent; it seems to be working. Spacious common room with table tennis and snooker table.

Much effort put into building house spirit, with the walls adorned with photos of muddy teenagers after bonding activities and the house music festival, which is as much about the intensive rehearsal schedule as the end result (particularly, presumably, given that all participate regardless of talent).

Head says school ‘is committed to the boarding school ethos’. Day pupils are allocated desks in house and many stay until 9pm to join house activities. One parent reports waiting outside, ‘listening to boys laughing and singing to each other. It sounds like a party.’ Plenty of weekend activities too, to keep boarders entertained. Day pupils also welcome at weekends after curriculum activities, subject to availability of parent taxi service we assume. The rhythm of the school revolves around boarding which, admit day parents, ‘can be hard – you need to be relaxed and flexible.’ Early morning team training can start at 7am, for example. Option to stay over included in fees.

Ethos and heritage

Monkton Combe senior school was founded in 1868 by the then vicar of Monkton Combe, the Reverend Francis Pocock, to educate the sons of Christian missionaries. While the intake may have broadened somewhat in the last 150 years, the Christian ethos remains very much in evidence. Head describes it as ‘not so much a faith school, as a school with a faith-based system’. One parent mentioned that faith ‘runs through the school like Brighton rock’, and school emails end with Bible references. Bible and Christian Union meetings also on offer. Parents say the school is not overtly religious and there is no pressure on pupils to be involved (although free donuts at CU meetings might offer additional incentive).

We picked up on a strong sense of community, commented on by pupils and parents alike. Whether it’s the first team hockey players helping to introduce foreign students to the sport before their first lesson, or people ‘having your back’, there is a real sense of care. ‘If you’re looking for survival of the fittest, it’s probably not Monkton,’ one parent observed. The school’s ‘failure of the week’ award seems in keeping with this approach. Pupils (and staff) may volunteer to give a presentation on a challenge they have faced, no matter how large or small, to the rest of the school. Trying but failing is celebrated as much as success.

‘Kind’ is a word that pops up frequently, alongside ‘family feel’ and ‘homely’. Pupils say that they have friends across different year groups and will sit together at mealtimes and on the bus on the way into school. Parents talk of the school producing ‘decent people’ and ‘characters you’d want to have in the world with you’. Those that we met struck us as being polite, assured, grounded, and yes, thoroughly decent.

Set in the tiny village of Monkton Combe, three miles outside Bath, and nestled into the countryside, the school and its surrounds are fondly referred to as ‘the Monkton bubble’. The buildings, in honey-coloured Bath stone, add to a sense of rural serenity and we understand the parent who commented, ‘It is a very calming place. I always feel peaceful when I go there.’

Pastoral care, inclusivity and discipline

Head believes that the boarding element allows for full pastoral provision over and above day schools. ‘It is the downtime that is often the most pastorally fruitful,’ time which is not so readily available in regular school hours. All teaching staff are involved in boarding activities, giving them the chance to have informal conversations with pupils away from the classroom.

Pastoral care is mentioned time and again by parents (‘gold standard,’ says one) who talk of the nurturing and welcoming environment as having been a motivator for choosing the school. One parent of a child with extensive experience of the school’s approach stated, ‘If she had been anywhere else, I don’t believe she would still be in school.’

A tracking system is in place which allows staff to monitor the mental health of students by using tools that measure, each term, their self-disclosure, trust of self and others, and seeking change. Head was an early adopter of the system, and although some pupils seemed slightly bemused by the process, their faith that the process would ‘not be there for no reason’ is an endorsement of the pastoral care approach in itself.

Approach to discipline is to find the root of the cause rather than focus on the punishment. One parent whose son was involved in a minor scuffle commented that rather than punishing him, the school ‘were more concerned that it was out of character’. Any pupils with concerns can turn to Whisper, an anonymous online reporting system. Disciplinary issues warranting sanctions are said to be a rarity, although there was one recent round of permanent exclusions for drugs-related offences.

The pupils we spoke to report that discussions of LGBTQ+ rights are open, and that the school offers ‘a safe environment in which anyone can express themselves’.

Pupils and parents

Many families with both parents working full time in order to pay the fees. The long days are of obvious appeal to parents who can swing by on their way back from the office. Social events such as quiz nights help keep parents involved, as do yearly house dinners. Many boarders also local, which must help with the community feel, bolstered by the relatively small size. On average, 10-15 per cent from overseas, mainly from Africa, Asia, and Europe. A few reports that in some year groups, a number of places taken up by teachers’ offspring. Views mixed as to whether this results in an uneven distribution of plum roles or team places.

Money matters

A limited number of bursaries, with priority given to families of clergy and missionaries. Boarders from military families can receive 10 per cent fee reduction. Discounts for siblings. Scholarships, whether academic, creative, sporting or the Monktonian (for leadership), have been rebranded as Excellence Programmes and no longer attract fee reduction.

The last word

Not the largest or most academically selective in the area, and no trophy cabinet groaning under the weight of sporting silverware. But there is plenty to suit all tastes at Monkton Combe, overlaid with a culture that allows pupils to grow at their own pace and a community that embraces traditional values of kindness and respect.

Special Education Needs

Monkton is registered in the "CReSTeD" list of schools approved for the teaching of dyslexia. The Learning Support Department caters particularly for the needs of dyslexic and dyspraxic students. Monkton is experienced in concessions for examinations: administering extra time, readers, use of laptops and written transcripts for pupils with specific needs. Close and regular consultation takes place between the Learning Support Department, tutors and subject teachers. 09-09

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