Bedales School A GSG School
- Bedales School
Church Road
Steep
Petersfield
Hampshire
GU32 2DG - Head: Will Goldsmith
- T 01730 300100
- F 01730 300500
- E [email protected]
- W www.bedales.org.uk/
- An independent school for boys and girls aged from 13 to 18.
- Boarding: Yes
- Local authority: Hampshire
- Pupils: 470; sixth formers: 196
- Religion: Non-denominational
- Fees: Day £35,775; Boarding £46,185 pa
- Open days: September
- Review: View The Good Schools Guide Review
- Ofsted report: View the Ofsted report
- ISI report: View the ISI report
- Linked schools: Bedales Pre-prep, Dunannie and Bedales Prep, Dunhurst
What The Good Schools Guide says..
Pastoral care was arguably invented here. John Badley’s vision was to shape the school around what was best for the individual’s educational welfare and happiness, and this holds true today. Parents of pupils who haven’t flourished elsewhere say they ‘blossomed overnight’ and that the school is great for self-esteem, ‘especially for those who struggle with tradition’. The arts here bear no resemblance to the ‘add-ons’ to round out pupils evident in some other schools. Head of music told us…
What the school says...
Bedales was founded to be different from the schools of its time. Where others imposed conformity, Bedales nurtured individuality, initiative and an enquiring mind. True to its roots and founding principles the school places emphasis on collaboration and care for others.
Our students are naturally ambitious and competitive, and build strong relationships with each other and their teachers based on mutual respect; everyone, staff and students, is on first name terms. This approach enables students to concentrate on the complex business of learning, developing and becoming their own person. Bedales continues to be an onnovative school; we led the country in replacing many GCSEs with our own more interesting and demanding Bedales Assessed Courses. Our students move on comfortably to university and beyond, because they are self-disciplined, are already used to organising their own time, to studying in depth, and to mixing and debating with their elders. ...Read more
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Curricula
Cambridge Pre-U - an alternative to A levels, with all exams at the end of the two-year course.
What The Good Schools Guide says
Headmaster
Since 2022, Will Goldsmith MA, formerly acting head since 2021. Educated at Tonbridge and Edinburgh (English literature). Child of expats, spent his early years between Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe, boarding at Yardley Court in Kent from age 8. Onwards to Tonbridge which gave him ‘great intellectual grounding’ and where he developed his love of singing in the chapel choir and the library – ‘both important parts of my life’. Fortunate to land in ‘a liberal house’ there, came out as gay aged 17 – quite something for a pupil at a boys’ school in the ’90s – ‘The novels of EM Forster got me through,’ he says. Hotfooted to Paris after university ‘on the pretext of an application to the Foreign Office’, where he started out teaching English as a foreign...
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Overall school performance (for comparison or review only)
Results by exam and subject
Subject results
Entry/Exit
Special Education Needs
At Bedales, students with specific learning difficulties receive one-to-one support on a weekly basis with an SEN teacher. Typically, these students will receive one learning support lesson per week, and most of them will go on to achieve high grades at GCSE and A level. All but a few enter higher education where they read a wide range of subjects, notably maths and sciences but also history and English.
| Condition | Provision for in school |
|---|---|
| ASD - Autistic Spectrum Disorder | Y |
| Aspergers | Y |
| Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders | Y |
| CReSTeD registered for Dyslexia | |
| Dyscalculia | Y |
| Dysgraphia | Y |
| Dyslexia | Y |
| Dyspraxia | Y |
| English as an additional language (EAL) | Y |
| Genetic | |
| Has an entry in the Autism Services Directory | |
| Has SEN unit or class | |
| HI - Hearing Impairment | |
| Hospital School | |
| Mental health | Y |
| MLD - Moderate Learning Difficulty | |
| MSI - Multi-Sensory Impairment | |
| Natspec Specialist Colleges | |
| OTH - Other Difficulty/Disability | |
| Other SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty | Y |
| PD - Physical Disability | Y |
| PMLD - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty | |
| SEMH - Social, Emotional and Mental Health | Y |
| SLCN - Speech, Language and Communication | Y |
| SLD - Severe Learning Difficulty | |
| Special facilities for Visually Impaired | |
| SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty | |
| VI - Visual Impairment | Y |
Who came from where
| School | Year | Places | Scholarships | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beaudesert Park School | 2024 | 1 | ||
| Dorset House School | 2024 | 2 | ||
| Inwoods Small School | 2024 | 2 | ||
| Moor Park | 2024 | 1 | ||
| St George’s School Windsor Castle | 2024 | 1 | 1 | Music Exhibition |
| Thomas's Clapham | 2024 | 1 | ||
| Trevor-Roberts School | 2024 | 1 |
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