Charterhouse

Charterhouse is among the most beautiful of the great historic schools of Britain. Founded in London in 1611, the school moved to its impressive 200 acre site in the Surrey countryside near Godalming in 1872. This excellent location provides convenient access to Heathrow and Gatwick airports with London (Waterloo) only 45 minutes away.

With 400 years of history to celebrate in 2011, Charterhouse looks forward to a dynamic and progressive future at the forefront of independent education in Britain.

We see the School as a highly stimulating and demanding environment, but it is also the place were children will spend most of the time for some of the most important years of their lives. At the very least, a boarding school needs to offer an environment which feels safe and supportive, but we seek to ensure that our boys’ and girls’ time at Charterhouse is also warm, entertaining and inspiring.

Our focus is always on a combination of academic excellence with sympathetic and imaginative teaching. We pride ourselves on the strength of a teaching staff which is at once highly qualified and able to draw on a very broad range of previous experiences; one fairly typical department includes a Fellow of All Souls, an award-winning author, a journalist and a one-time management consultant. Many of our staff, of course, have learned their trade in other schools or universities, but we continue to draw on the expertise of those who have spent time in the armed forces, the City, the law and the Church.

Like every school, we seek to ensure that our pupils have the opportunity to pursue their studies in attractive and well-equipped classrooms and science laboratories, and are particularly proud of recent additions including a remodelled and extended Library, a new Modern Languages Centre and the Beveridge Centre for Social Sciences. We constantly look to improve what we already have, and plans are now far advanced for a new Chemistry department.

But the most important characteristic of a Charterhouse education is our ambition that every pupil should fulfil his or her potential and discover the pleasure of independent learning. Teachers are encouraged to explore their subjects in greater depth and breadth than is required by any exam syllabus, and a host of academic societies, lectures, competitions and seminars enable pupils to develop their own interests as widely as they wish.