Welcome and thank you for your interest in our school. Please use the School website and Prospectus to help you get to know us better.

The ethos at Highcliffe is very special. We are more than a school. As a thriving community we are also a way of life rooted in the values and behaviours we believe to be important. We are passionate about the power of education to improve lives. We believe young people learning mutual respect, openness, tolerance, and generosity towards others to be as important in their life as learning inquisitiveness, self-discipline, determination, and initiative. Everything we do at Highcliffe helps our students develop these values in order that they care deeply about their education here and make the very best of the opportunity it offers them. Our ambitions for our students extend far beyond examination success.

Visitors to Highcliffe are impressed by the friendly, respectful and purposeful atmosphere here, as well as by the talents and achievements of our students. We insist on hard work, on exceptional standards of behaviour, courtesy and good citizenship, because the well-being and success of our students are of paramount importance to us. Our students enjoy learning in a stimulating environment where each young person is treated as an individual. Our teachers are experts in their chosen subject who seek to communicate their passion for learning to their students as well as helping them gain the best exam results. As a result our students are happy, fulfilled, high-achieving and proud to be members of our community.

We aim to develop our young people as unique and remarkable individuals with their own special talents and interests. We are very keen for Highcliffe students to develop as great team players, eager to lead, to be formidable competitors and impressive performers. In addition to academic learning and studying our students sing, dance, act, draw, compose, perform, create, make and compete athletically as ways of expressing themselves and achieving.

We are sure that you, as parents, are delighted our flourishing Sixth Form provides a seamless transition into post 16 education now that education or training to 18 is compulsory for all. Life in our Sixth Form broadens horizons as our young people develop and progress to University, to apprenticeships or graduate employment. Our students regularly progress to Oxford or Cambridge and a wide range of top Russell Group Universities as well as to Higher Education courses across the country or abroad.

Highcliffe is a wonderful place to work and learn, a place I am proud to have the privilege of leading. My colleagues and I look forward to working with you to give your child the first-rate education on offer here.

Patrick Earnshaw BA (Hons), MA, PGCE

Headteacher