Junior School FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the school’s ethos?

  Croydon High School aims to provide academic challenge, extensive enrichment and a unique education for remarkable girls

  The school creates a learning experience that is characterised by academic adventure and wide ranging opportunities to excel.

  We aim to achieve that crucial balance between challenge and personalised support, delivered by a passionate and dedicated staff body for whom the girls are always the first priority.

  We work together with a common purpose; to ensure that girls joining Croydon High will leave us as confident, engaged, compassionate and ambitious young women.

  • Academic excellence and challenge, particularly at the high end – our academic elite is well catered for and highly successful. Our teaching staff is committed to maintaining a strong dialogue about teaching and learning to ensure our methods and resources are relevant, up to date and future-proofed.
  • Pastorally very strong indeed as our well-deserved reputation will suggest. We know each girl individually and cater to them as such – they are known and understood as learners, as sportswomen / musicians / performers and the support put in place for pupils is highly personalised. This is an incredible strength of the School
  • An excellent all-round education with opportunities in every arena. The school provides modern purpose built accommodation with wonderful sports facilities, including floodlit netball and tennis courts, swimming pool and a sports pavilion overlooking the floodlit all-weather surface hockey pitch. Our Drama, Music and Art facilities are equally impressive, with opportunities for the girls to discover passions for these subjects – and much more both within and outside of the curriculum.
  • Careers’ advice and support – an exceptional programme of support to ensure girls’ make good and sensible choices. Croydon High Junior School is proud to be one of the few Junior schools in the country with an established, age appropriate careers programme that starts from Nursery
• How many girls are there in a year group /class in the Junior School

  Classes in the Junior School are small enough for each pupil to be known as an individual, but large enough to provide girls with the opportunity to interact with a wide range of peers.

• Tell me about Learning Support: (SEN)

  We have a specialist Learning Support team who provide excellent guidance and assistance on a one to one or group basis for any who need any extra support.  In addition, our highly skilled Junior School TAs are also on hand to provide support to pupils, either individually or in small groups.

  If you have any specific questions you would like to ask regarding our provision, please email juniors@cry.gdst.net and your questions will be forwarded to the team.

• What is the Pastoral Care like?

  Exceptional – we are recognised particularly for the quality of our pastoral care. Excellent relationships between teachers and students lies at the heart of it – a staff body that cares and puts girls first (Every Girl, Every Day was born from this premise.)

  In the Junior School, the lynchpins of our pastoral provision are our excellent class teachers and the strength of the relationship that they have with each of the girls in their class – they are the first port of call for parents and girls alike. As a Junior School, the class teachers are responsible for delivering the majority of the curriculum, which means that they are able to maintain total oversight of each individual in all areas of school life.

• What about Medical Health?

  We have a School Nurse on the school site. If you have any specific questions regarding the health/medical provision we provide for the girls at the school, or if your daughter has a medical or dietary requirements that you wish to discuss before applying to the school, please email your questions ( in complete confidence) to juniors@cry.gdst.net

• How many pupils are there in the seniors/ juniors/ nursery?

  Approximately 700 pupils in the school – split roughly 70:30.

• We have heard the school is growing, how big will it get?

  2 classes in Juniors & 4 forms in Seniors per year is what we are growing towards. This allows us to continue to provide the excellent pastoral care and academic support we pride ourselves on.

• How many students do you take in Year 7? Do all girls from the Junior School progress to the Senior school?

  Most do transfer. We then tend to add the same again which gives us 4 forms in Year 7. We are becoming increasingly popular and of course, many, many more apply than we can take.

  It is IMPORTANT to emphasise that there is a complete mix up at Year 7, dozens of feeder schools and many girls arrive not knowing anyone. Our SKERN week of team building, Taster and Induction programmes means we find girls settle very well.

• Academic Standards:

  Every cohort is different but we consistently achieve excellent results at GCSE and A Level. Results are all on our website.  Recent university destinations are included in the prospectus pack.

  League Tables do not always reflect the all-round achievements of our students. Some tables do not recognise IGCSE (see below) so we do not appear.

  Academic rigour is a real focus led by our Deputy Head, Academic Dr Phil Purvis in the Senior School and Deputy Head of Juniors, Laura Threadgold.

• Tell me about transport?

  From Year 3 upwards, girls are eligible to use our school transport. We operate a number of minibus routes and we will always endeavour to accommodate new requests within our existing network, or, where significant demand arises to introduce new routes.

  Currently a return journey currently costs £7.21 per day with a single charged at £4.63 and we offer return routes from the following areas:

  • Banstead via Coulsdon and Caterham
  • Wallington via Purley and South Croydon
  • Addiscombe and Shirley
  • Beckenham and Bromley
  • Oxted and Woldingham

  For full details of current routes, or to discuss future routes, please go to

  Croydon High Transport

• Where do pupils travel from?

  Widely. From Banstead, Wallington, Purley, Beckenham, Westerham, Oxted, Caterham. Increasingly we have interest from the Clapham and Dulwich areas.

• What are the pupil destinations after A levels and what sort of degree courses do pupils take?

  A Destinations chart is included in the admissions guides; our girls go on to study a wide range of courses at some of the best universities in the country. There is an increasing interest in the apprenticeship route and we are extremely well placed to support girls in this though our outstanding careers and networking initiatives and strong alumnae relations

• What subjects can you do at GCSE and A Level?

  All information detailed on the website – https://www.croydonhigh.gdst.net/seniors/curriculum/

• How is the school funded?

  The school is one of 25 in the Girls Day School Trust, the UK’s leading network of independent girls’ schools, educating over 19,000 students. A registered charity, the GDST invests heavily in capital projects and naturally school fees contribute towards a large part of the costs of running the school

• Who pays for refurbishment of the school?

  The school is significantly supported with refurbishment by the GDST who re-invest all profits in to their schools to improve facilities for the pupils. We have a rolling programme of improvements and have just completed an exciting large scale refurbishment project in the Junior School, with the creation of a new Hall and performance space as well as specialist subject areas for music, drama and computing.

  The school also raises funds via appeals to alumnae and monies raised from this are currently directed to providing additional bursary awards, to increase opportunities for girls to join us.

• How are the fees decided?

  Fees are set centrally, with input from Heads, by the GDST. Please find a link to our fees page here