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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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!

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