Welcome – an exceptional all-girls’ school
The Abbey is a remarkable all-girls community of learning and brilliant experiences. It is a place of curiosity, adventurous spirits, and the excitement of discovery. We focus on individual care and attention in a warmly supportive atmosphere, full of fun and laughter. Our students have the assurance to take risks, explore interests and passions, and engage generously with the world and with each other.
Our results are outstanding, but what matters to us is how students achieve them. Our goal is to equip girls to achieve academic excellence with confidence, purpose and joy. This means providing exceptional opportunities across the widest spectrum of learning and activities. We offer more student-led learning and choice in our curriculum than almost any other school, so that students take charge of their own futures and mature into the people they mean to be.
What’s special about The Abbey is the atmosphere. We’re a diverse, down-to-earth community full of enthusiasm, spark and energy. Please do explore this website and have a look at our entries in the Good Schools Guide and Muddy Stilettos, but the best way to get a feel for the school is to visit. Being in the halls for one lesson change, feeling the buzz all around you, gives you a sense of The Abbey spirit.
We’ve played a leading role in all-girls education for over 130 years. During that time we’ve adapted and innovated and that is true now more than ever. In today’s world, all-girls education matters: it helps our students face the future on their own terms, ready to make the world a better place for themselves and the communities around them.
We would love to welcome you and above all for you to meet some of our students. Come and visit us any time!
Dr Sarah Tullis, Head
“I feel my girls are growing up happy, confident and kind…”
Our purpose, values and principles
The Abbey School provides an outstanding real-world education for girls that equips them to achieve academic excellence with confidence, purpose and joy.
Working in partnership with families, we support each individual student to expand their horizons, discover their passions and fulfill their potential. We offer academic excellence, extra-curricular opportunity and pastoral assurance within an environment prioritising kindness and fellowship.
Our objective over 130 years of leadership, innovation and reform has been to provide a liberal, practical and general education. That remains true today:
- Liberal in thought, tolerance, and generosity.
- Practical in preparing students to face a changing world on their own terms, excited by opportunity, resolute towards uncertainty and committed to leadership and service.
- General in the remarkable breadth and range of experience and encouragement to participate.
Our values
Our values are courage, honesty and kindness. We champion them every day; we are informed and tested by the positive tension that exists between them, and we seek to examine all our actions and choices in their light.
Our principles
We nurture academic excellence: outstanding grades that open doors, positive attitudes that change lives, and a learning environment full of excitement and fun.
We value every individual: working with families to ensure that every individual is known and valued for who they are.
We provide future-ready opportunity: diverse and down-to-earth students, full of city spirit and energy, ready to take up opportunities and help shape the future.
Above all, we put girls first: helping girls learn free from gender bias, free to choose any future they want, free to play with ideas and grow up while staying young.
Our values and principles help us achieve our goal of academic excellence with confidence, purpose and joy.
