Roedean School

If the word boarding makes you hesitate, Roedean is worth a look precisely because it is not only that. It is an independent girls' school for eleven to eighteen on the cliff above Brighton, and it takes day girls alongside full, weekly and flexi boarders in roughly even numbers, so a day girl arriving at eleven would not be an outsider. Entry at eleven is a set of online tests in English, maths, reasoning and problem solving, an interview, and a reference from her current school.

The building is the thing you see first: a single listed range about 150 metres long, put up in 1897 and 1898, with a chapel added in 1905, standing between the South Downs and the Channel. The campus runs to forty-five acres with a further seventy-five alongside, and the school keeps a farm on it. Years 7 to 9 board together as junior boarders in their own wings of each house, and the sixth form moves out into separate houses a short walk from the main building.

The top floor of each boarding house is called heaven, which the Good Schools Guide once observed is 'not far off' given the views. Girls make their own evening food in pantry kitchens off the corridors rather than being fed at every sitting. The Guide's current read is that the school is 'jolly modern, rather than jolly hockey sticks', and one parent told it the school 'finds ways to nurture pupils' talents, whatever they may be'. Twenty buses run daily. It suits a girl who wants the sea out of the window and the option of going home at night.