Welcome to our website! We hope that it will give you a feel for Highgate and that you will want to come and visit us.

Open mornings and evenings are held throughout the year when you will have a chance to meet current pupils, tour the school and hear from me (Senior School) or my colleagues who lead the Junior and Pre-Preparatory Schools. In anticipation, you may like to watch a short film which will give you an insight into life here: no speeches, hard sell or boring bits, the films feature current pupils talking about their experiences interspersed with short clips of lessons, activities and pupils at play. Click here to avoid the dull bits below and go straight to the films.

Highgate is three schools in one: the Pre-Preparatory School (ages 3-7) and the Junior School (ages 7-11), each with its own Principal, and the Senior School (ages 11-18). Girls and boys in roughly equal numbers are admitted at 3+, 7+, 11+ and 16+ from a diverse range of backgrounds and schools, both state and independent, throughout North London and further afield; arrangements for entry at 13+ are changing and you are advised to contact the Admissions Office for details. We provide means-tested bursaries (assisted places) and honorary scholarships (both academic and musical) at 11+ and 16+. We are a day school and don’t have lessons (only activities, like sports fixtures or outward bound trips) on Saturdays. Highgate has a Christian heritage, dating back to its foundation under Elizabeth I, of which it is proud, but also a long tradition, of which it is equally proud, of welcoming pupils, teachers and support staff from other faiths or none. We are keen to encourage children from all backgrounds to come to Highgate: please come and see us!

A few prospectus-style words to sum up our aims for our pupils: we want Highgate to be a happy, cohesive community where pupils enjoy life to the full, value their friendships and achieve balance in their lives. We want them to leave us for places at academically-demanding, selecting universities, here or abroad, with the ambition, motivation, skills and staying-power to study independently and make a success of their studies. We want them to be emotionally and intellectually ready for the world of work: creative problem-solvers; rigorous and imaginative thinkers; balanced risk-takers; team-players and leaders. We want them to enjoy a childhood to the full and to have developed and pursued passions, both academic and extra-curricular. We want them to have grown as individuals, conscious of the advantages they have enjoyed and of the opportunities and obligations such advantage brings. We want them to be open-minded and able to challenge prejudice wherever they encounter it. We want them to carry on their learning away from Highgate and regardless of exams. We want them to be successful and employable, but not at the cost of happiness and balance.

Come and find out for yourselves: I look forward to meeting you!

Adam Pettitt, Head

 

Pictured above: Adam Pettitt, Head (centre) with Mark James, Principal of the Junior School and Director of Admissions, and Diane Hecht, Principal of the Pre-Preparatory School