Northampton High School

If you picture a girls' high school as Victorian brick in the middle of town, this is not that. Northampton High moved out of the town centre in 1992 onto twenty-seven purpose-built acres at Hardingstone, on the southern edge of Northampton, and everything from the nursery to the sixth form now sits on that one green site. It is an independent day school for girls from two to eighteen, part of the Girls' Day School Trust. Entry at eleven is an online assessment in January, after a taster day in November.

It started on 2 May 1878 as the Northampton Middle-Class Girls' School, with twenty pupils in Abington Street, and spent the next century collecting town houses one at a time before consolidating onto the present site. The four houses are named after Greek goddesses, Artemis, Demeter, Hestia and Selene, and compete each term at things including House Singing and Drama. Most girls arrive on the school's own minibuses, which serve more than 190 stops across three counties, with a late service from a quarter past five for anyone staying on for sport.

Sport is the thing to weigh up. There is a floodlit all-weather pitch, six outdoor courts, an indoor twenty-five metre pool, and a partnership with Northampton Town Football Club, extended by five years in August 2026, which brings weekly coaching and a route into the club's talent pathway. The Good Schools Guide calls it 'a small, polished and spacious school known for its academics and sports', and is candid that on 'whether the school is a comfortable place for the less sporty, the jury is out'. There is also a forest school with a mud kitchen. It suits a girl who will use the space.