Ratcliffe College

If you want a school day that runs seamlessly into the evening rather than treating it as separate, Ratcliffe is set up that way: tutor time from twenty-five past eight, then prep or activities from twenty to five until ten past six. It is an independent Catholic co-educational school on the Fosse Way north east of Leicester, taking children from the nursery through to eighteen, with about 920 in all and around a hundred of them boarding. Boarders can start in Year 6.

It opened on 1 June 1847, founded by the Rosminian Fathers, and Historic England records it, citing Pevsner, as the first Catholic college founded in England since the Reformation. The main front was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin, who did the interiors of the Palace of Westminster, and the chapel of 1875, with its rose window, is by his son. The building is listed. Girls joined the sixth form in 1979 and the school became fully co-educational at eleven in 1984.

Entry at eleven is assessed in maths and English, in the January or February before the September a child starts, and the school publishes familiarisation papers so that nobody walks in cold. GCSE classes average fourteen. Houses compete at singing and drama, and the oldest surviving house event is a race around the square. The old pupils' association was formed in 1867. The Good Schools Guide calls it 'a secluded Catholic school where many spend their whole childhood', but found that 'far from feeling like a bubble, leavers come out well-rounded and more than prepared for the real world', with a parent adding that 'it's got a loving feel'. It suits a child who will settle in and stay.