Co-curricular life at the Senior School is extraordinary. The range of options available to students, and the level of passion and talent they display, are among the very best anywhere in the country.
Co-curricular
Our music programme is nationally renowned. You can read all about it, find out about our remarkable range of groups and ensembles, and watch dazzling performances in our dedicated music brochure, OPUS – packed with videos and information!
We are so proud of the sporting achievements of Abbey students both in team competitions and individually.
Our core school sports are: Hockey, Netball, Swimming, Biathlon, Cross-Country, Rounders, Tennis, Diving, Athletics and Gymnastics. We also have a massive range of additional clubs including fencing, basketball, golf, football, judo and many more.
We have many students who represent their county and some who are in national squads in a variety of sports ranging from those listed above to Rowing, Cricket, Synchro Swimming and Aerobic Gymnastics.
In recent years Abbey teams have won national competitions and Abbey students have powered club victories across the region.
There is a huge fixture list of matches, taking place during games afternoons and after-school, with Saturday tournaments and squads playing in tours in the UK and overseas.
We were proud to host the UK’s biggest one-day conference for young female athletes.
Watch our video to find out more.
“Theatre is a mirror. A sharp reflection of society.”
Yasmina Reza, playwright and actor
Students are provided with a multitude of productions in which to participate. Upper III (Year 7) perform in their own Christmas Pantomime (directed by Sixth Form students) and Upper III, Lower IV (Year 8) and Upper IV (Year 9) students participate in a biennial Lower School Play.
Our centerpiece production, for students from Upper IV (Year 9) to Upper VI (Year 13), is the biennial Upper School Play. We enjoy an outstanding relationship with our local theatre, South Street Arts Centre, where we stage many of our productions, and this professional theatre environment, supported by a lighting designer, results in productions of exceptional range and quality. Recent productions have included ‘We Are The Searchers,’ ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’, ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’, ‘Arabian Nights’, ‘The Canterbury Tales’, ‘Macbeth’, ‘As You Like It’, ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’, ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’, ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘101 Dalmatians’, and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
The Drama department also collaborates closely with the Music Department on the School Musical, including ‘Hairspray’ and ‘We Will Rock You’, which play to packed houses and give students the chance to experience a professional standard of production – as well as being involved in directing, choreography, the band, stage management, lighting and sound as well as performance.
A weekly club is offered to Upper III and Lower IV, where students explore devising, improvisation, characterisation, storytelling and text.
The Abbey is also fortunate to have a Theatre Artist in Residence. Cassie Friend, is an actor, director and deviser, and a founding member of the acclaimed RedCape Theatre Company. Cassie works alongside the drama team to deliver our rich and diverse extra-curricular programme.
We are a welcoming and inclusive department. Drama is not just for those who enjoy performing on stage, and students have recently worked as sound designers, lighting operatives, directors and assistant directors, and costume and make-up assistants on a number of productions.
One of the joys of Senior School are the student works of art that decorate reception and are found all around our building. Ambitious, complex, striking pieces are everywhere, and testament to the thriving art scene at school.
At the heart of opportunity in art are the Open Studios that the team work so hard to provide to artists of all ages and levels. Across lunchtime and other breaks young people can be found making almost anything. There are plenty of trips and gallery visits and the Art Scholarship programme is impressive: the annual Art Tea, with students coming together to learn from each other, make things and most of all have fun, is a highlight of the school calendar.
Another high point is the annual House Art celebration. In recent years this has featured wearable art of all types. Students come to school parading the most eclectic items, and th day concludes with external judges awarding prizes in a high-tempo art show.
Every year Sixth Form students enter Articulation, a national award for presentations on the work and impact of chosen artists. The range of talks is so impressive and students often go on to regional success and national involvement.
The Senior School is also thrilled to host two Artists in Residence. They run workshops and clubs with students, exposing them to so many different styles and types of work and ensuring the path forward into lifelong artistic work is clear.
If you had to choose one single event that typifies everything the Senior School stands for, it would be HMAD - or to give it its formal title, House Music and Drama.
The idea is simple. On the day before Autumn half-term, each of our four houses puts on a show, one after the other, all through the day, and the entire school is there to watch and celebrate.
The shows feature scripted drama, improvision, comedy, choral work, orchestras, dance. Everything is student-run: it is common to see a student conduct an orchestra playing a piece composed by one of their peers and arranged by another. Casts of 50, 60, 70 or more are typical. The atmosphere in the room as the school cheer on their own is pure distilled joy.
In terms of the scope and ambition of work created wholly by students, there is probably nothing else like it to be found anywhere.
Rivalling the unique atmosphere of HMAD, our biennial Gym & Dance spectacular is exactly that – an evening where our most talented students take over the Richards Hall Theatre and every style of dance imaginable, as well as performing at a level of gymnastics that takes the breath away. The choreography is designed by students and the whole evening is always unforgettable.
Watch our highlights video.
Much of the creative activity in school is given shape and focus by our scholarship programmes in Art, Drama, Music and Sport. There are scholars in every year group and they collaborate together and lead activity – while ensuring opportunity is available to all. See our scholarship page for more.
Our Outdoor Education programme is truly adventurous and progressive, enabling our students to gain a wealth of experience, learning and inspiration.
Excellent education and development must go beyond the academic and our Outdoor Education programme is a perfect complement to academic education. Experiential and adventurous education is essential in helping the students to develop the many skills and attributes required alongside academic ability. Our Outdoor Education programme seeks to provide valuable learning opportunities using three key areas:
- Environmental – exposure to, and learning about, different environments, be that in the woods, the hills, the rivers, the mountains, different countries or simply a different place nearby
- Activity – learning new, or developing existing, activity skills and abilities, such as camping, map reading, rock climbing, kayaking, sailing, orienteering, hill walking, cooking on camp stoves etc
- Personal and Social Development – experiencing living and working with others, including sharing accommodation or tents, eating and cooking together, working with others, problem-solving, decision making, leadership, taking responsibility, dealing with challenges, dealing with risk etc
Our Outdoor Education programme is progressive throughout the school from Junior through Senior and Sixth Form. It moves from local, activity-based, instructor-led experiences in the Junior School through to genuinely adventurous remote and overseas opportunities in the Sixth Form. Using the above three factors we can ensure that each trip and experience builds on the previous, giving worthwhile developmental opportunities. We encourage the students to take on responsibility whenever possible in these activities rather than just follow the Instructor.
Our Outdoor Education experiences take on many different guises, from whole year shared residential experiences, such as the Lower III activity week or Upper III bushcraft trip, to optional activity trips to develop specific skills (for example skiing or rock climbing), to challenging expeditions such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expeditions or overseas Abbey Challenges. In the past, we have visited Morocco, Nepal, Uganda, Borneo, and Costa Rica. Plus, for those students who find a particular activity enjoyable (for example, climbing, sailing or canoeing) there are regular after-school clubs in which they can develop their skills and work towards performance awards.
Clubs form part of every week for every student. These might be long-running clubs to which students commit for years, or new interests they try with friends – or to make new ones! There are dozens and dozens of clubs and the programme changes all the time as students found new clubs with staff support. Here’s a representative sample.
- Senior Debating
- Sixth Form Magazine
- String Quartets
- The Abbey Literary & Banoffee Pie Society
- Politics Club
- Ukulele Ensemble
- Listening Club
- Wind Ensemble
- Amnesty Group
- Microloan
- Refugee Club
- Tycoon
- Art Open Studio
- Design Ventura
- Cipher Club
- Creative Writing
- Cyber Discovery
- Drama Club
- Fashion Drawing Club
- Knitting Club
- Cooking Club
- Theatre Ensemble
- Bench Ball
- Dance
- Diving Club
- Gymnastics
- Swimming
- Volleyball
- Running
- Senior Gymnastics Squad
- Swim Squad
- Tag Rugby
- Indoor Cricket
- Football
Student leadership
One of the best aspects of all-girls is that every leader is a girl, and the style of leadership is seriously impressive: decisive, collaborative, recognising the service at the heart of responsibility.
Every form has a leader and representatives on councils looking at sustainability, diversity, food and more. The Student Council is run by a dedicated Sixth Form team and is responsible every year for ideas and improvements that make the community better for everyone.
In the Sixth Form the majority of students have their own specific leadership roles. They might become ambassadors for a subject, captains in sport, music, drama and art, house captains, deputy Head Girls or Head Girls. But they might also become prefects in an area that excites them for the future – for example, in communications and marketing or alumnae relations. Students have the opportunity to challenges themselves and blaze their own trail every day.
