Brighton Girls School

If your daughter is at a small primary and the thought of a big secondary makes her go quiet, Brighton Girls is worth a visit. It is an independent day school for girls, part of the Girls' Day School Trust, with the senior school and sixth form on Montpelier Road in central Brighton and the prep school next door in Temple Gardens. Sport happens off site, at pitches and an astroturf in Hove. Parents who knew it as Brighton and Hove High School are in the right place: it took its present name in 2019.

It was founded in 1876, the tenth school the Trust opened, and marks its hundred and fiftieth year in 2026. Teaching happens in Regency houses rather than on a purpose-built campus. The main one, The Temple, is listed, and was built as a private house for Thomas Read Kemp, who developed Kemp Town and is said to have based the design on biblical descriptions of Solomon's temple. It went up in open fields. Girls join Year 7 after written papers in December and a one to one interview, then go into one of four houses named after early pioneers of girls' education.

The senior day ends at half past three, with enrichment and study until quarter to five. Year 10 girls train as peer supporters for the new Year 7s, and Year 8 girls spend time with Year 6 before they arrive, which is the detail that matters in September. The Good Schools Guide calls the school 'firmly back on local families' radar' and reports a parent of a recent leaver saying they would 'choose it again in a heartbeat'. One pupil told the Guide, 'There's nothing I feel I couldn't ask a teacher about here.' It suits a girl who wants a school small enough that somebody asks how she is.