Ashford School

Ashford School is a coeducational independent boarding and day school in East Hill, Ashford, Kent. There are 480 students in the Senior School (ages 11 to 18) and 360 in the Prep School (ages 3 to 11).

The school is owned and run by the United Church Schools Trust and is a member of The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC). The current headteacher is Mr Mike Buchanan, who is Chairman-Elect of HMC for 2016-17. Mike Buchanan will step down as Headmaster of Ashford School in July 2018. Mike Buchanan’s successor will be Michael Hall. Michael Hall will be the Headmaster of Ashford School from September 2018, at the beginning of the 2018-2019 School academic year.

Ashford School was recently ranked one of the UK's top 20 coeducational, independent schools and was voted Independent School of the Year 2010. It was also a Good Schools Guide award winner in 2011 and at the Archant Good Schools Show it was voted one of the country's top five boarding schools. The School was endorsed as outstandingly successful in every category during the most recent inspection by Independent Schools Inspectorate in 2014.

Located within walking distance from Ashford International railway station which is just 37 minutes from London by high-speed train, the school also benefits from rapid access to the continent via Eurostar. The London airports are all within 90 minutes and it runs a bus service to the surrounding towns and villages.

Boarding life starts at age 10 at Ashford School where pupils can choose a range of boarding options: flexi, weekly or full. The school has 3 boarding houses: Junior boarding house Brooke & Refuge and senior boarding houses Brabourne and Alfred.

History
The school was founded in 1898 by Mrs Muriel Thimann, who opened a small school for "ladies" in Queens Road, Ashford. Nothing much is known of this school except that, before long, it was necessary to move to larger premises; first in Wellesley Road in 1903 and then to two houses in the High Street in 1905. In 1910 Mrs Edwards bought the school and renamed it "The Modern High School for Girls". Within a short time the school expanded into another, adjacent house in the High Street and then finally moved to yet again bigger premises on East Hill in 1913. For the vast majority of its existence it has been a school only for girls. In 2005 it merged with Friars Prep School in Great Chart and in 2006 boys were admitted in some year groups and it is now a fully co-educational school from the age of 3 to 18 offering boarding and day facilities. Mike Buchanan was first appointed the headmaster of Ashford School in February 2005.

Space shuttle experiment
In 1992 a science experiment designed by four girls at the school flew on the Space Shuttle on flight STS-47 The experiment had been designed in 1985 by the girls who had won a competition organised by Independent Television News. The  chemical garden experiment was successful but the Liesegang rings failed to operate correctly due to a friction in parts of the mechanism. On their return they were displayed in the London Science Museum. The seven-year delay had been caused by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster which occurred in 1986 shortly before the intended flight.

A.
A. is a semiannual school magazine with sections including Poetry, Fiction, Art&Photography, Opinion and Debate. All content is contributed by Ashford School students.

Ashford School International Centre
The Ashford School International Centre (ASIC) has been opened as of September 2015. This section of the school has been designed to meet the needs of non-native English speaking pupils, from the outset becoming a world-class centre of excellence.

ASIC is an 18th-century Grade II listed building, which has undergone a multimillion-pound refurbishment, providing state of the art teaching classrooms alongside boarding rooms. This school will allow pupils from around the world to complete iGCSE before joining the rest of the school.

Notable Alumni
 Petronella Barker (born 1942), actress
 Louise Burfitt-Dons - writer and campaigner
 Liv Boeree - model, TV presenter, champion poker player
 Sally Brampton - journalist, writer, and magazine editor
 Lucy Cooke - National Geographic explorer, TEDtalker, award-winning documentary producer/presenter, best-selling author and zoologist
 Wendy Cope - poet
 Jane Druker - Editor at Large: Fit & Well, also a contributor to Woman & Home 
 Sophie Montagne - adventurer & inspirational speaker: part of the first all-female team to ski coast-to-coast across Antarctica using muscle power alone (Nov 2017 - Jan 2018)
 Sally Preisig - accomplished voice-over artist and puppeteer. She created the voice of Bella in Tweenies, and was Peggy Patch in Playdays, both award winning shows for the BBC.
 Diana Speed - Radio 4 Newsreader
 Anna Turley - Former Labour MP & Chairwoman of the Co-operative Party since 8 June 2019
 Fleur Willson - Deputy Ambassador, British Embassy Tripoli at Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Heads of Ashford School
 Muriel Thimann 1898 - 1910
 Anne Edwards 1910 - 1928 
 Lilian Brake 1928 - 1955
 Mary Nightingale 1955 - 1971
 Sanche Thompson 1972 - 1984
 Tatiana Macaire 1984 - 1992
 Patrica Metham 1992 - 1997
 Jane Burnett 1997 - 2000 
 Paula Holloway 2000 - 2005  
 Michael Buchanan 2005 – 2018
 Michael Hall 2018 -

References

External links
School website
Stats from www.bbc.co.uk
Ofsted

Category:Independent schools in Kent
Category:Member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference
Category:Educational institutions established in 1898
Category:United Learning schools
Category:1898 establishments in England
Category:Ashford, Kent