St Catherine's School

Girls who like getting quietly on with things, and who want room to be ambitious without being pushed, tend to settle well here. St Catherine's is an independent day and boarding school for girls, taking pupils from 11 to 18 in the senior school, with a prep on the same site. It sits on Station Road in the village of Bramley, a few miles south of Guildford.

The school opened in 1885 with seventeen girls, founded by local clergy and gentry whose names now belong to the houses: Ashcombe, Merriman, Midleton, Musgrave, Russell Baker, Stoner. The chapel, dedicated in 1894, has Kempe stained glass and a Willis organ, and girls are in it weekly. The motto, 'Let us go on', comes from the sermon preached at that dedication, and it describes the tone rather well: forward, steady, not fussed about perfection. Teaching groups in the first two years are lettered rather than numbered, so no ranking can be read into them. Lacrosse is the sport the school is known for, with senior teams that travel to national championships. Juliet Stevenson was a pupil in the 1970s.

The Good Schools Guide describes lessons as 'quiet and purposeful', with 'girls focused and engaged', and says pastoral care is 'genuinely woven into the fabric of the school'. Parents point to the house system as the thing that makes a new Year 7 feel known by half term, since houses mix year groups from the start. It suits a girl who wants to be stretched rather than ranked, who likes sport or singing or making things as much as a good lesson, and who does better somewhere that expects plenty of her and then helps her get there.