Stephen Perse Cambridge Senior School

If your child might love chemistry one week and crochet the next, Stephen Perse Cambridge Senior School is worth a look. It is a co-educational independent day school for ages 11 to 16, in the centre of Cambridge on Union Road. The Good Schools Guide describes a “happy atmosphere of purposeful learning”, and the school says it makes a point of knowing every student as an individual. Most children join in Year 7. According to the Guide, about two thirds come from the school’s own junior schools and the rest from local state primaries.

The school began in 1881 as the Perse School for Girls, founded from the bequest of Dr Stephen Perse. It says the cartoonist Ronald Searle based his St Trinian’s drawings on it, and that he confirmed as much in a letter in 1993. It is now co-educational in every year group. The site has a large sports hall, a rooftop games pitch and a riverside sports ground with a nature reserve, where students can try paddle boarding from a jetty on the Cam. Clubs range from archery and chess to Dungeons and Dragons and a crochet group. Every student joins a House, and the House Cup comes with an ice-cream sundae. Students use school-issued iPads, and the school does not encourage smartphones.

It suits a child who enjoys a brisk, broad timetable. In Years 7 and 8 students follow a common core that includes separate sciences, Latin, humanities and two modern languages. It also suits a child who is happy to join in, whether that means a choir, a hockey team or a chess club. Entry is selective, with an assessment day that includes an interview, so it helps if your child is comfortable talking about what they enjoy.