Rupert joined Cranleigh School in Year 9 with a Sports and Music Scholarship
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Rupert in his Cranleigh School uniform, with cricket bat – his big dream is to become a professional cricketer!
The other schools I looked at with my parents, before settling on Cranleigh School, were Brighton College, Hurst and Christ’s Hospital. What really drew me to Cranleigh was that it had such a strong community feel, without too much segregation between year groups.
Since joining, I've seen that it really is like that. It feels more of a community than a school. The sports options Cranleigh offered were also a huge draw for me.
To achieve my place, it began with online verbal and non-verbal tests. I then sat the school’s academic scholarship papers, which covered all subjects. I didn’t achieve that scholarship. But they offered me a place on the basis of how I performed in them and I was then invited to group interview sessions. These were designed really to see how you 'think', rather than ‘learned stuff’. I also applied for a music scholarship (I play the drums and sing) and a sports scholarship. That part involved Cranleigh assessing my performing and musical knowledge and then my sports and fitness abilities. All in all, it was two and a half days of assessments.
That all sounds hard but it was actually fun. The best part was that as well as having tours with teachers, I also got to see what the school was like for actual students. They paired me with a Year 9 pupil who took me around East, which is the house I’m in now. That was a big helping point to see a normal day, and be there for ‘call over’ (registration), and see the routine of the day.
“I was definitely ready for a bigger school.
This school felt much bigger than Somptng Abbotts when I arrived but I got used to it. I've found I've liked it because I've made friends from all the different things I do. I've got friends from my house, friends from music, friends from sports, and friends from all my different subjects.”
Now I’m here there are around 140 children in my year group. We’re divided into roughly eight different sets, depending on the subject and our strengths.
Cranleigh is a big campus – 280 acres – with about 700 pupils. For sports, it’s brilliant – there are so many pitches! It goes all the way down to Ds, sometimes Es, for rugby and every team will play on the weekends. Then there are the astros, netball courts, swimming pool and a cricket bubble. The sports hall is a massive hall with loads of different activities always going on in there, including indoor hockey and basketball.
I’m a weekly boarder. As I don’t live too far away, I go in on a Monday morning and stay until Saturday afternoon after my morning lessons and match. Then, every three or four weeks, we have an exeat. We break up on Friday at midday and then get to have a longer weekend at home.
“Now boarding feels totally normal and I actually love it. It's almost like having a sleepover with your friends every night.”
At the start of boarding, I got a bit homesick and anxious for the first few nights. I thought that boys being boys, that would be a bit of a downfall for me. But everybody in the house were great and I wasn’t the only one. The staff were really helpful. If I felt a bit homesick in the night, I'd just go see Matron or my head of house and then I felt fine.”
Here, a typical day starts with the alarm at 6.45am, shower, get dressed and breakfast (cereal, bacon, eggs, croissants etc). Then we have a little downtime before call over (registration). Tuesdays and Thursdays we have chapel and on Fridays we have Congo, which is congregational-like singing sessions.
Lessons begin at 8.30, with a break at 10.15 to 10.40 when we go back to our houses, for snack like a toastie. Then it’s further lessons and lunch at 12.25.
Afternoon lessons re-start at 13.15, with what’s called Priority Time at 14.15. For that period, you choose from a bunch of different activities: basketball, table tennis, trampoline, swimming – there lots of different things, though I use some of them for band practice and choir. Then onwards it's mainly outdoor activities. We'll do orienteering with our iPad compasses, air rifles, archery, that kind of thing, and then different sports each day.
Rupert playing his drums at Cranleigh.
Dinner is at 17.50 and from 19.15 until 20.45, we have a supervised prep session (we get set about three pieces per day). They're quite strict on that kind of thing, which I think is good. You have to buckle down for that hour and a half but you have other times in the day where you can mess about with your mates.
“What I’m especially loving is the cricket training here.
I have a lot of different cricket sessions. Mr Welsh, the Head of Cricket at Cranleigh, runs the sessions in the cricket bubble. He's also started forming a squad for the under-14s.
Then we'll have some snacks, maybe catch a football game on the big TV, and it’s nightime call over for bed, and lights out at 9.30pm. The days are packed here and go very fast!
I’m deciding my GCSEs now. I'll be doing PE and Music (due to my scholarships), triple Science, Maths and English, Spanish, Classical Civilisation and probably Art.
I've an aspiration to be a professional cricketer. But I would still like to get solid A-Levels in case cricket doesn't work out!
Cranleigh School
The ISC says: “Set in 280 acres on the Surrey/Sussex border, Cranleigh offers a happy, nurturing environment based on a strong family-focussed ethos. Combined with an excellent track record, outstanding sports facilities and staff, extensive music and drama opportunities, and the result is well-rounded, confident pupils well prepared for the rigours of life and invariably blessed with a lifelong circle of friends.”
Muddy Stilettos says: “There’s a real campus-ey feel to Cranleigh School, with academic buildings and boarding houses spread across the site. The school is not narrowly academically selective, and instead conducts a holistic review, valuing students who will try their hardest, participate in school life, take a risk and contribute to the friendly atmosphere within the houses and the school.
Cranleigh prides itself on being a value-added school, which basically means the focus is not squarely on the final exam results, but on the progress that each student has made and how far they’ve come. Good for: Parents who value a school with a serious sense of community, both within the school grounds and beyond.
Cranleigh has high academic ambitions and, while sport is at the forefront of much of life here, drama and music certainly hold their own too.”
Rupert (top row, far right) with his fellow Year 8 Scholarship winner pupils at Sompting Abbotts
“I’ve such good memories of my time at Sompting Abbotts. I feel I was so lucky to go to a small school where there was so much focus and attention on me. English lessons with Mr Douch were so interesting and the outdoor activities around the lovely grounds were such fun. ”
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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!