About Us

We are a coeducational Grammar School set around an ancient lake in beautiful walled grounds on the edge of Canterbury. We have just under 900 students on roll, including a Sixth Form of over 200. Our Pupil Admissions Number (PAN), which is the number of students that are allowed to enter in Year 7, is 120. Key Stage 3 is completed in two years, i.e. by the end of Year 8 which allows for a three year Key Stage 4 by the end of Year 11. A number of GCSE subjects are, therefore, taken by students at the end of Year 10 and this enables us to plan an enrichment program in the time saved. In the sixth form all our students study for the International Baccalaureate which is recognised and highly valued world wide. A new development for the academic year 08-09 was the introduction of seven Focus Days, spread across the year, when the timetable is suspended and all students in the School participate in a variety of activities to significantly widen their extra-curricular experiences further.

The city of Canterbury and Canterbury Cathedral are within easy walking distance as are the coach, bus and main line railway station. The School has Language College Status from the Specialist Schools trust.

Barton Court Grammar School lies close to the old city walls of Canterbury in the conservation area and World Heritage Site of St. Augustine's Abbey. It was the farm of the Abbey from its foundation in 605 AD ('Barton' stemming from 'bere tun' or 'barley enclosure'). The school is built around the lake in which the monks of the Abbey farmed fish. When Henry VIII destroyed the Abbey, he gave the farm to one of his faithful. Its lake remains and is a haven for wildlife, still teeming with fish despite visiting herons.

The gardens and grounds of the school contain many fine old trees, including the sixth Ginkgo to be introduced into the country from China (the first five were planted in Kew Gardens). Ginkgos are single-sexed, so Barton Court students grafted on a branch from another tree so that now it can produce fruit. The Science/Maths/English teaching block had to be designed around it.

We are also very fortunate to have large playing fields behind the school, unusual for a city centre site, schools generally being built on the outskirts of cities to obtain sufficient space. Being a few minutes walk from the centre of Canterbury means that not only is the city an invaluable resource on our doorstep, but also that daily travel is much easier for students who would otherwise have to catch a second bus out to school.

The present old house, a fine Georgian manor house, was built in 1750. It has been completely restored and is the heart of the school, containing classrooms, offices and networked computer suites. It comprises one of the three sides of a would-be quadrangle around the lake, the others being a 1960s wing containing a brand new library as part of refurbishments and a building housing laboratories, technology workshops and classrooms. In the garden behind the house is a splendid new sixth form facility - The Diploma Centre. It is a great credit to imagination of our architects and the Canterbury planning department that such building can take place and fit so well into this very delicate and closely protected conservation area.

We have been able to further expand the accommodation within the School grounds through the construction of a suite of rooms for Modern Foreign Languages, two ICT rooms and a Food Technology room. We have just completed a £5 million sports hall project in conjunction with Canterbury Christ Church University, which is opposite the School. We operate an innovative timetable and tutor structure that incorporates a two week timetable cycle and three 100 minute lessons per day.

Do such features matter in a modern, highly academic and successful grammar school? We certainly think so. It is good for our students to see such features carefully preserved to give them the most pleasant surroundings for their education. They are a constant reminder of things other than the daily routine and an encouragement to be forever looking beyond one's own immediate work and existence.

Although the house is old, the school itself is relatively modern. Barton Court was still a farm until early this century, approached up a long drive from New Dover Road. Much of its land then went to make way for housing and college developments. The manor house was pressed into use for teaching purposes during the 2nd World War, just for girls, the boys being taught in the city hospital building down the road. It began to be fully used as a girls' school after the War and became fully coeducational in 1991.

Being a grammar school means that we are a school specialised to cater for the most academically able children. The education which we provide is fast and intense and would not be suited to the majority of students, who are well provided for in the excellent High schools in the area. Academic ability, as measured in the county-wide assessment procedure is the sole criterion for entry and our students come from far afield and from all backgrounds.

Academic achievement is only one facet of our provision. Like all good schools, we strive to provide as many opportunities as possible to broaden our students' awareness and experience outside the classroom. In addition to the sport almost every day after school, there are musical and dramatic productions, including a major musical every year and carols in the Cathedral, visits at home and abroad and residential field-courses. There are two particularly high profile trips for all students - Year 7 will all travel to France within the first five weeks of them joining the School for a two night/three day residential and Year 12 visit the Swattenden Outdoor Centre for a residential trip in the first week in the Autumn Term.

Each July, during our Enrichment Week, we suspend the classroom-based curriculum and all our students choose from a vast range of new activities and experiences. For example at the Year 8 outdoor activities camp, each tent cooks for itself on open fires and Year 9 can participate in an Action Adventure Course that enables them to experience abseiling, climbing, quad biking and zip wire, for example. Large numbers of singers and instrumentalists travel to other countries giving concerts. Our Enrichment Week is designed to enable our students to learn new things together in new groups and surroundings and to develop new abilities and enthusiasms which will be of life-long benefit.

Visitors to Barton Court frequently comment upon the friendly and civilised atmosphere of the school. This is due to our delightful buildings and surroundings, as well as to the school's being coeducational. During these crucial years of their development, it's highly important that boys and girls should work and study together. In this way they learn to understand and respect one another in their everyday lives, and to relate to one another in a mature and perfectly natural manner.

Our students are continually encouraged to care for and take responsibility for themselves and one another; it is fundamental in everything we do. In addition to working very hard and achieving everything of which they are capable, we want them to be happy and to enjoy life here. Barton Court is a haven in which they can learn and experiment and sort out their thoughts and ideas in a safe, supportive environment. In this way, they will become the responsible, well-balanced people which they and their parents would wish.

Barton Court is a school with delightful buildings in a superb position and environment. But what makes the school really successful are the people who choose to work here, students and staff. Children and their parents choose Barton Court because they sense and value that it provides something unique and they want to be part of that; our students are considerate and responsible and we are very proud of them.

We work very hard to enable each student to achieve the great things of which they are all capable; the school is the very antithesis of complacent. We are forever looking for new and better ways of providing for our students, to enable them to achieve their potential and take full responsibility for their own lives and the needs of' others, and to prepare them for a world of ever-increasing change.