Annabelle became a boarder at Christ's Hospital from Year 9 having won an Academic Scholarship
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Annabelle wearing her ‘Housey’ and traditional Christ’s Hospital uniform
I looked at Lancing College and Roedean before settling upon Christ’s Hospital. I thought the facilities for music and netball were incredible; especially its Music School and the practice rooms. My parents were also very impressed by the charitable ethos of the school.
Christ’s Hospital is academically selective. So everyone has to go through its assessment process to be considered for a place.
Because I joined the school during the pandemic, my assessment was mostly online. Normally, though, you’d take an initial, computer-based ability test (verbal, quantitative, non-verbal and spatial reasoning) in the autumn.
Successful applicants join a residential assessment, just after Christmas. This is an overnight stay (in which they assess your suitability for boarding). And you take written Maths and English papers. You then find out about your offer of a place around Valentine’s Day.
The day room in Annabelle’s dorm house, where pupils gather to relax
Now I’m here, I like it a lot – it's really fun! It took me a week or two to settle in. But once I did, I made my first friends. I thought I'd feel homesick at the start, but I didn’t. I just missed sharing certain special moments with my parents but it was easy to call them.
You quickly get used to boarding, and every third weekend is a ‘leave weekend’ (exeat) or the beginning of a school holiday. Outside of lessons, we’re allowed our mobile phones. So it's not hard to keep in touch with your family or friends by Facetime or texts etc.
Everyone is so friendly. The girls in my boarding house already knew each other when I joined. (I started in Year 9 and Christ’s Hospital starts at Year 7). But, they were all lovely. By half term, I’d completely settled and everyone wanted to get to know me too!
The Dining Hall at Christ’s Hospital
Because it’s a boarding school, pupils don’t come from a 30-minute radius of the school, like at Sompting Abbotts. They come from across the UK, as well as from China, Africa and other places in the world.
It was strange getting used to the Christ’s Hospital ‘language’ though. I still have to translate it for my family and friends! For example, Year 9 is called LE (Little Erasmus) and when you reach Year 13, you’re called a ‘Grecian’!
Christ’s Hospital
The ISC says: “Christ’s Hospital is a remarkable school, it is the UK’s leading charitable school and largest bursary charity. The school was established in 1552 and provides free or greatly reduced cost places to over 630 of its 900 pupils – this is more than any other organisation in the UK. Christ’s Hospital provides each pupil with stability and the opportunity to thrive. 98% of pupils go on to university and leavers take with them the confidence they will need to achieve success at university and beyond.”
Tatler says: “Parents are drawn by the diversity, with one claiming it is ‘the most ethnically and socially diverse boarding school in the country’ and lauding the fact that this ‘enables pupils to make lifelong friends with people they would never have come into contact with otherwise’.”
The school is located outside Horsham, West Sussex.
When I first joined, I shared a room. But I now have my own room! It’s perfect. I’ve my own study space, bed and wardrobe and I can put up decorations and pictures to make it more homely too. In each boarding house, there are a mix of bedrooms. Junior (Years 7 and 8) bedrooms can be between two to four beds per room. But by the time you’re a Senior, most pupils have their own bedrooms.
Saturday nights are always fun! We can choose different activities. Sometimes it might be a disco, or film night, or ordering Domino’s Pizza! It is all optional, but for me, the best nights are when we get to choose treats, like garlic bread, and the girls in my year get together and watch a DVD.
Pupils at Christ’s Hospital choose their meals buffet-style from the servery
All our main meals are eaten in the Dining Hall. Breakfast is at 7.10am, lunch is at 1pm and supper at 6pm. On Sunday you get brunch! The food here is really good. There’s always so much choice – including a salad bar and puddings. At breakfast, for example, you can choose from cinnamon rolls, croissants, cereals or waffles and more.
The general shape of the day goes like this: 6.45am: Rising bell; 7.10am: Breakfast; 8.30am: Lessons; 11.10am: Break; 11.40am: Lessons; 1-2pm: Lunch; 2-3.30pm: Lessons; 3.30-5pm: Activities/Sports; 5-6pm: Junior prep; 6-6.30pm: Supper; 8.30pm: Beds.
Prep takes place supervised in one of the classrooms when you’re a Junior. But when you become a Senior (Year 10+), you can do your prep in your bedroom. After prep, weekday evenings are very chilled.
I especially love music and netball and I’m enjoying the drama and the theatre here, too. I love that I have the freedom to use my time as I like. I can go for a run before breakfast in the morning and do music practice when it suits me, outside of my academic timetable.
Over 100 young musicians make up the famous Christ’s Hospital Band which gathers four days a week with its oboes, piccolos, tubas, drums and more to march all 900 pupils into lunch, through the school’s vast quad – a unique and spectacular tradition at Christ’s Hospital.
The uniform at Christ’s Hospital has to be one of the most striking features of the school. It has hardly changed in over 450 years. The girls’ uniform is a white shirt, knee-length dark blue, pleated skirt, yellow socks and long ‘Housey’ coat, with a special belt and broadie buckle over the top. In the summer term, we change to a shorter jacket, and when you become a senior (Year 10+), you have the option of wearing black tights.
We wear school uniform for our academic lessons. But we can change into our everyday clothes in the afternoons. The uniform is comfortable once you’ve got used to wearing it – now it feels completely normal to me.
Christ’s Hospital is very different to Sompting Abbotts. It’s much bigger – in every respect! Bigger buildings, larger site and more people. There are over 100 pupils in my year group (compared to 14 at Sompting Abbotts).
You also have so much more freedom outside of your academic timetable, which I really like. The work expectations are similar but at Christ’s Hospital you have more time to complete your prep. Another difference academically is that science gets taught in its separate disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics, rather than as a combined subject.
“If anyone at Sompting Abbotts is considering here, I’d say it would suit someone who wants to try everything and strives to do well. Just being in the Christ’s Hospital environment inspires you to take part! I would say it’s beneficial to be part of the Year 8 scholarship group at Sompting Abbotts, to help you prepare for the academic expectations at Christ’s Hospital. It also helped me to have taken French from such an early age at Sompting Abbotts.”
In Year 9 at Christ’s Hospital, you can take 10 subjects. I’ve chosen English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, French, Theology & Philosophy, Drama, Music and Food & Nutrition.
The expectation is that you’ll follow through with nine of these in Year 10 and complete them to GCSE level. I’m struggling to decide which subject to drop because I love them all. Eventually, I want to become a singer/songwriter. But I’m keeping my options open for now!
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Next steps
Charlie won an Academic Scholarship to Christ’s Hospital and joined in Year 9. He now boards full-time and although homesick at the start, now rarely wants to go home!