A Choice of Two Award-Winning Schools in Yorkshire
Set in 220 acres of beautiful countryside between Harrogate and York, Queen Ethelburga's Collegiate (QE) is a multi-award winning day and boarding school that welcomes girls and boys aged from three months to 19 years and boarders from Year 3
The Faculty of Queen Ethelburga’s (for Years 10–13) has recently been awarded the prestigious title of Independent Schools Association Senior School of the Year 2024. To win the award, QE Faculty had to demonstrate how it makes a positive difference to pupil outcomes through its focus on academic excellence and future preparation whilst maintaining a sense of creativity and fun. The school achieves its aims through offering a diverse and flexible curriculum with timetables designed around each student's passions alongside a choice of over 150 extracurricular activities including Esports and Motorsports.
Within QE Faculty, budding artists and designers are fully supported by the rich arts offering of QE's Gold Artsmark-accredited creative arts department and the fantastic Queen’s Academy of Creative Arts programme. The school offers a large choice of subject options and extra-curriculars, outstanding facilities and extra studio time – the results of which can be seen in how many students receive regional and national awards and prestigious university places each year.
For athletes, the school offers Year 12 students an additional five hours per week for sporting development, structured around four AS levels as part of QE's popular Performance Sport Pathway (PSP). The pathway, which is available from Year 7, offers coaching from ex-professionals, high-level competitive fixtures, access to state-of-the-art facilities. personalised skill development, strength and conditioning plans, as well as nutrition, sports massage and physiotherapy.
Lastly, the performing arts ADA option offers audition support and improves skills in acting, musical theatre, comedy, stage combat, and a variety of dance styles with extra time dedicated within the school day. Outside of class, students perform in school productions held in the on-site professional 312-seat theatre, at annual events and in outdoor theatre shows. They can also participate in co-curricular activities including LAMDA as well as dance, drama and music ensembles.
The other senior school, QE College, is an ambitious and traditionally academic school, which pushes gifted students to excel in academics alongside an enrichment programme of more than 150 activities, courses and trips. Regularly a The Times Top 20 School, it was recently named the Sunday Times Top School in the North for Academic Performance for a fourth year in a row, with students achieving 99 percent A*–B at A Level, 74 percent Distinction in BTECS, and 87 percent Grades 7–9 in GCSEs.
Within QE College, there is an Academic Pathway for students striving for the most competitive university places and careers. QE's Medic Programme is one of 10 identified programmes offered within the pathway and offers support with achieving the necessary grades, writing personal statements, MMI interviews, and UCAT and BMAT entrance exam preparation. It also offers work experience, university and research facility visits, alumni and professional lectures, QE’s Annual Suturing Workshop, QE’s Annual Medical Conference competition, QE’s Annual Careers Fair and five super-relevant clubs.
The whole Collegiate places its emphasis on growing students into resilient, caring, compassionate and confident adults with an ethos of: ‘to be the best that I can with the gifts that I have,’ underpinning everything. When QE was inspected by ISI in 2023, they said that ‘pupils feel that their opinions matter and that leaders are alert to their welfare needs, which promotes their self-esteem’.
