Beyond the Classroom

Our girls enjoy so much more than an excellent academic education. We provide countless leadership opportunities, expand girls’ horizons and give them excellent advantages as they move up through the school and beyond.

Naturally you will find an active sports faculty in the school, fielding teams at the highest level in hockey, swimming, netball, cricket and athletics. Our sports centre houses a swimming pool, fitness suite and sports halls for a variety of indoor sports and wellbeing activities such as yoga and pilates. A whole range of activities are on offer as lunchtime and after-school clubs as part of our unique REC (Radically Enriched Curriculum) offering for pupils.

If you enjoy drama or music, you will find many opportunities to join in, whether you want to take individual instrumental lessons, join an orchestra or other ensemble or take part in one of the many plays which are organized in school. Each year we stage either a play or musical and pupils from all years can participate as actors, musicians or backstage. In addition there are smaller performances organized in different year groups such as the House plays and House music competition.

Pupils can also choose to undertake the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, beginning with the Bronze award and continuing to the Silver and Gold award if they choose, and in addition to the large-scale activities, there are numerous other extracurricular opportunities, from debating to dancing, from coding to crafts, for the beginner, the improver and the expert.

Female executives often say participation in sport helps accelerate leadership and career potential. Therefore, sport and Physical Education are key ingredients of our programme for preparing the women leaders of tomorrow.

You can choose from a vast array of activities, ranging from traditional sports such as hockey, football, cricket, netball, tennis, badminton and swimming to Zumba, boxercise, tag rugby, handball, dodgeball, trampolining, dance, spin, aquafit and Ultimate Frisbee.  A superb state-of-the-art fitness suite is at your disposal to build your own fitness programme.

For our competitive sportswomen, there is a full fixture programme in a range of sports involving mid-week and Saturday fixtures as well as local, regional and national competitions and tours for either hockey or netball within Europe.  You may also want to take our Community Sports Leaders Award or enroll on coaching and officiating qualifications in hockey, netball, cricket or lifeguarding.

Overseas trips are a much-loved part of the Sixth Form experience; enhancing and supporting academic study and providing wild and wonderful encounters around the world!

In recent years, students have visited Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands to experience authentic South American culture and witness Darwin’s evolution theories first-hand; explored the Nepalese Himalayas, including the 5360m climb to Everest base camp; and navigated the South China Sea by completing PADI scuba diving qualifications in Malaysia.

In addition, you can look forward to ski trips, cultural city breaks, sports tours, language exchanges, field study residential and homestays. Bavaria, Berlin, Colorado, Iceland and Seville are just a selection of the amazing destinations on offer.

Arts activities are rich, varied and vibrant. The orchestra is at the hub of our musical community, together with choir, flute choir, wind quintet, string quartet, jazz and pop club. The ladies’ chamber choir goes from strength to strength with a range of performances at different events throughout the year.

Our performing arts club connects music and drama and the senior drama company includes auditions, workshops and working with guest directors.

We’re really proud of our successes in preparing students for further study and training in the performing arts, with recent Alumnae going on to courses in acting and theatre arts, film, music at a conservatoire and television production.

There is a Chinese proverb which states “Teachers open the doors, but you must enter by yourself”. The Northampton High School equivalent is “We scatter your path with opportunities”. Our unique and bespoke Enrichment Programme is scattering myriad opportunities and that students are required to do is sign up, show up and be interested. We believe that it would be a disservice to our pupils to let them leave school with just GCSEs and A Levels

Beyond the core academic curriculum, but within the timetable for Years 10-13, our enrichment programme allows students to delve into a huge range of activities to broaden their horizens.

Please click here to view our Enrichment & Electives Programme Guide.