Aim High, Stay Grounded.

Clifton's aim is to ensure academic excellence for all. Intellectual risk-taking is encouraged in an environment where students are free to question, free to discover, free to try and free to succeed. Academic expectations are high and pupils are inspired to maximise their academic potential.

In the Upper School, we foster a learning culture that encourages independence, allowing students to take ownership and responsibility for their learning while being challenged and stimulated in equal measure.

Each year we send some of our most academically able students to Oxbridge, while others choose to study overseas, such as at the universities of Yale. Toronto and Hong Kong. 

Sixth Formers receive tailored careers advice and staff work in close contact with parents and pupils to ensure they receive the best support and encouragement.

It is like one big family; everyone takes care of each other.

At Clifton College, students are encouraged to follow their own individual interests, whilst also taking away the common cores of knowledge and cultural experiences. The College fosters individualism, passion and talent, but this is always balanced with a powerful community ethos and a culture of high expectations.

The House system is one of the College’s great strengths, engendering a sense of belonging in all students, and the mechanism for delivering outstanding individual care.

Older students take pride in encouraging and mentoring the younger children. The Chapel and the Synagogue support the spiritual life of the College and they lie at the heart of Clifton. The Chaplain and Rabbi play a unique and significant role in supporting students and staff of all faiths and of none.

There is such a diverse variety of activities you can choose from.

Drama and Music play a valuable role in the cultural richness of life at the College. Clifton was one of the first boarding Colleges in the country to have its own purpose-built theatre.

Music is the soundtrack to life at Clifton with over 25 concerts taking place per term. Recent highlights include a current student winning first place in the Junior Royal Academy of Music Violin Prize, a year 13 pupil being offered a full scholarship to study singing at Royal College of Music, and a recent leaver receiving a double starred first in Music at Cambridge.

Clifton College has a long and proud sporting tradition, which began with the first Head Master, John Percival, who believed all should be involved in physical activity.

These days, Clifton still operates a policy of ‘Sport and Fitness for All’, and the range of sport offered is outstanding, both in its breadth and excellence of instruction.