5 Best Private Schools You May Not Have Heard Of_34029

Not all British private schools are as easy to name-check as Eton, Harrow or Rugby, in fact some of the country's finest independent schools are much less well known. Schools such as Kingswood School in Bath, Hurtwood House in Dorking, St Peter's School in York, Uppingham School in Rutland and Bromsgrove School are known in their local areas to be among the top independent schools in the country, but are nationally less well known than their more famous counterparts.

Take, for example, 500 year old Bromsgrove School in Worcestershire. Founded in the middle ages, this erstwhile Tudor grammar school is described as "outstanding" by both The Good Schools Guide and Ofsted. If you are looking at league tables you will find Bromsgrove listed in the top 10 and some years in the top 5.

Bromsgrove School may be 500 years old, but it is as modern an independent school as you could hope to find, with a forward thinking headmaster keen to distinguish his school from other stuffy boarding schools. They even offer the globally accepted International Baccalaureate as an alternative to A Levels.

In contrast to Bromsgrove, Hurtwood School in Surrey was founded as recently as 1970, yet despite this short history, Hurtwood regularly tops the tables as Best Co-educational School in the UK. Unlike Bromsgrove, which offers classes through from preparatory up to A level, Hurtwood focuses on the two years leading up to university with students usually aged from 16-19.

St Peter's school in York is one of the oldest schools in the UK, established in AD 627, it is the senior school to Clifton pre-prep and St Olave's prep school. With ground stretching to the edge of the River Ouse, this school is arguably as impressive looking as Eton. St Peter's has famous alumni as diverse and Guy Fawkes, of the gunpowder plot fame, through to the composer John Barry who's film scores include no less than eleven Bond soundtracks.

Uppingham School in Rutland, known simply as Uppingham, though less well known than some of its counterparts is very much a stalwart of the UK public school. Notably, Uppingham has the greatest acreage of any English school. With so many playing fields, you might expect Uppingham alumni to include many notable sportsmen and indeed it does, but includes a plethora of other well-known names from TV chef Rick Stein, to musician Cecil Sharp. Uppingham also has a strong military tradition with at least three old boys having won the Victoria Cross.

Kingswood School in Somerset was established by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in order to educating the sons of clergy who could ill afford to pay a private tutor. Today, of course, its pupils come from a wider range of backgrounds. An early adopter of the Eco-schools project, Kingswood was one of the first Somerset schools to be awarded a 'green flag' for its work to reduce waste and care for the environment. They received their third in 2010.

Those in the know have of course long been aware of these schools, but it may give new prospective parents hope, when searching for an independent school for their child, that the UK boasts so many unique and outstanding private schools to choose from.