‘ Whether you join us aged 13 or 16, you will be developing throughout your time at Charterhouse.’
Welcome to the start of your journey Whether you join us aged 13 or 16, you will be developing throughout your time at Charterhouse. Some changes will be subtle – little things like having more confidence to make new friends or take on a responsibility. Others will be more striking: leaving the School with the proven ability to think in different ways and to study independently. You’ll also develop awareness of our set of core values – responsibility, open-mindedness, perseverance, moral courage and kindness. We believe these are key to being successful at this fantastic school and will be crucial for success in adult life, alongside all the skills and qualifications you will gain during your time with us. Life at Charterhouse is always a partnership between the School and you, individually. We will make sure you are supported at every turn and that you feel comfortable, respected, safe and secure in your environment. In return we want you to take an active role in your own education, and take responsibility for it, not simply allowing others to educate you.
From challenge and inspiration in the classroom to a vast range of different co-curricular activities, many of which are pupil led, there is a huge breadth of opportunity available to you here. Our role is to help you to navigate these options, to make the most of every day, and to have a lot of fun along the way. Whether you are with us for five years or two in the Sixth Form, we want you to head out into the world ready to contribute something new to it. I hope this prospectus gives you a sense of what a busy, purposeful and ambitious school Charterhouse is, and an understanding of the values that we share, but it is no substitute for a visit. I do hope we see you here soon.
Dr Alex Peterken Headmaster
Our inspiring campus Charterhouse has been evolving for more than 400 years to meet the needs of pupils. Today, the School rests on a beautiful campus just outside London, where we continue to develop and grow our educational offering. 1611 Charterhouse was founded in a former Carthusian monastery near Smithfield, London. The early schoolhouse gave 40 ‘poor scholars’ a chance to forge a better life, thanks to the legacy of our founder, Thomas Sutton. This great philanthropist also left us his motto ‘Deo Dante Dedi’ – ‘God having given, I gave’ – one that we continue to aspire to, every day.
1872 The then Headmaster, William Haig Brown, removed the expanding School from the unhealthy air and distractions of the capital. He chose Godalming as the new home for the School, newly defined in the Clarendon Report as one of the country’s nine ‘public schools’. Here we remain, in a 250-acre campus of green space and stirring architecture, combining the traditional with the new.
2023 Our vibrant community of pupils will soon number 1,000, supported by nearly 500 staff – all enjoying the extra opportunities that growth brings. Throughout the School, girls and boys will learn together, reinforcing mutual respect, empathy and understanding. Yet even with change some things remain the same. Our founding father’s encouragement to contribute with gratitude is still what inspires and informs us all today.
CHARTERH O USE U P CLOSE : O PEN - M I N D ED N ESS
Your journey starts here It all starts with an open mind – to new perspectives and experiences. As a Yearling (this is what the youngest Carthusians are known as), you may find the variety of opportunities here slightly overwhelming. Whilst there is a lot for you to take in – 14 subjects, and more than 20 sports and 60 societies to enjoy – we designed our Yearlings’ induction programme to help you settle quickly and happily into the full and vibrant life of the School. At the heart of this programme is your personal development and relationships with others. Our programme will see you being active (planting trees with a local environmental agency), reflective (exploring strategies for mental wellbeing), or creative (African drumming to learn about two-way communication). It all makes for a stimulating and fun way to make lasting friendships with other new pupils. To celebrate each Term’s progress, we offer a prize for the pupil who best embodies the Carthusian spirit – a sense of enjoyment, curiosity and consideration for others. With this attitude, you will thrive at Charterhouse …and everywhere life takes you.
Our mind-opening induction programme lasts all year. A great introduction to the huge breadth of opportunity that Carthusians enjoy every day of their school years.
365 DAYS
Our philosophy of learning We teach you skills as much as knowledge, promote academic rigour, develop your intellectual curiosity and inspire you to learn independently. Our teaching Our curriculum is stretching and provides the flexibility required for you to develop your individual talents, interests and abilities. Teachers here (still known as beaks) not only have real expertise and skill to inspire, but a remarkable fascination for their subject. It is an approach designed to inspire in you a passion for learning so that you relish investigating topics and ideas in depth. We offer a full range of subjects and, for the Sixth Form, a choice of A-Levels or the IB Diploma Programme.
Your learning What makes our philosophy really different is our expectation of you. With our guidance, we encourage you to take increasing responsibility for your studies. You have the freedom to direct your project work, and we encourage you to take the initiative. That is how a group of Yearlings discovering the Five Pillars of Islam found themselves interviewing the Palestinian Ambassador, among others, on camera for a documentary film.
Your future We believe we are preparing young people like you for a life of 100 years or more, where you might have as many as 20 jobs across several different careers. In a world in which conventional wisdom is under constant challenge, we want you to be ready for change, and able to adapt and thrive with it.
C H A R T E R H O U S E U P C L O S E : I ndependen t t h in k in g
Thinking for yourself Today’s challenges need creative solutions from tomorrow’s free thinkers. The ability to have, express and assess ideas is worth celebrating. So we do. We encourage you to take a view. Then we help you build that up into a theory or concept you are ready to share at our Festival of Ideas. Giving a 20-minute talk at this event is a chance for you to practise communicating an idea. For everyone else, pupils and beaks alike, it is a chance to explore something new, and often unexpected. Topics span the scholarly (ways to recognise experimental error), to the revelatory (the life philosophies of Forrest Gump), to name but two recent talks. Beyond our own thinking, the 20 eminent figures invited each year by our Perception Society have one remit: to challenge us with their thoughts. For as much as we like having ideas, we take pleasure in debating them. The ability to think for yourself starts with a spirit of open enquiry. Here, discussion spills out of the classroom and investigation extends way beyond the curriculum. The appetite to provide tomorrow’s answers is developing here today.
It starts with a flash of inspiration. It benefits from hours of mulling over. It culminates in 20 minutes to make a point memorable.
20 MINUTES
Our boarding is a way of life Boarding sits at the heart of everything we do, and is a central part of your experience at Charterhouse. Start here Your House is a welcoming home from home. It is your base camp from which you tackle the vast array of activities on offer. And it provides the comfy sofa to flop onto at the end of an exhilarating day.
Feel at home Little touches, like congratulating someone on a sporting success, helping with a problem or offering a kind word in passing are what turns a House into a home. When the House gets together for mid-morning toasties, it is an opportunity for you to refuel, and a chance for the Housemaster and Matron to check in on the kind of day you are having.
Grow together House spirit is important here, and House activities are a great way to try something new with friends, or to perfect an existing talent. From playing in the House waterpolo team, to cheering on your team in the House pancake race, there are so many different ways to immerse yourself in House life. Each October, we hold the House singing competition to help new and seasoned housemates bond. All under the direction of a House pupil conductor, who has the unenviable task of creating harmony. It might not be Broadway quality, but laughter comes as standard.
CHARTERH O USE U P CLOSE : KI N D N ESS
Finding your feet The House is the place where you become self-aware and attuned to others. Living side by side with many different and diverse people, you will learn to listen and to find your own voice. To work out where you want to go and how to think of others. To stand up for what you believe in and also to compromise. In short, to be yourself and to get on with everyone else. The House is the place where you first start to take on positions of responsibility and leadership. Beginning with the ability to organise yourself and your time, and ending with you bringing events and activities to life for the benefit of others. It is also where friends look out for each other and senior pupils mentor their younger peers. Where, in Prep time between 7 pm and 8.45 pm, sixth formers (‘Specialists’) will make time to check whether younger years need help conjugating a verb or applying a formula. The House is home to an interest in others and a generosity of spirit towards them. A traditional boarding education turns out to be a very modern way to equip you to thrive in a globalised economy, where you will be working hand in hand with people from all backgrounds and cultures.
Older pupils always have five minutes for younger pupils getting to grips with the very concepts they used to find tricky themselves.
5
MINUTES
Our breadth of opportunity As important as exam success undoubtedly is, our aim is for you to develop many skills, attitudes and characteristics outside of the academic curriculum. Priority This is why our timetable ring-fences plenty of quality time for co-curricular activity‌every afternoon in fact. Everyone is involved, with sports given priority on certain days and creative pursuits on others.
Performance Not only are sports and creative arts an important part of a balanced programme and healthy lifestyle, they are a great way of fostering belonging, be that competing on the sports pitch or cheering from the sidelines. You will have the opportunity to represent your House or the School – there are nearly 1,000 sports fixtures and artistic performances each year.
Potential Whatever your level or ambition, with a huge range of options available, there is something for everyone. If you wish to develop to higher levels, we can help you to achieve your full potential in almost any discipline with our first class facilities and coaching.
Lunchtime concert, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
C H A R T E R H O U S E U P C L O S E : r esponsi b i l i t y
Your leading role Much of the pride derived from a successful outcome is in the work you put in behind the scenes. Artifex is our joyous celebration of art and culture. It is a week of performances in the geodesic dome, from Hamlet to freestyle rap. There is also a plethora of fringe events in our grounds, from dramatic storytelling to pop-up coffee shops and ice cream huts. Almost every event is organised by pupils. Each actor, sound engineer, stage manager and barista is a Carthusian. Each audition, training session, sound check and dress rehearsal is a crash course in how to make decisions and manage time, budgets and – most importantly – people. This stage is a safe place to fail, learn and succeed.
1000s of hours of organisation, 85 events, one moment – yours.
Throughout Charterhouse, pupils take responsibility and show commitment. More than half of our 60+ clubs and societies are pupil led. Ambition, creativity and resourcefulness in delivering on obligations go hand in hand with the courage to take to the stage in front of your friends. The responsibility you learn in the weeks before Artifex kicks off is as important as the event itself. If all the world’s a stage, it makes a great life rehearsal.
Last minute adjustments before going on stage
1
MOMEN T
Our support for your choices Every boy and girl at Charterhouse has a personal tutor. Alongside your Housemaster, Matron and beaks, they are at your side to guide the choices you make. Wellbeing Through a shared life of informal conversations, meals together, weekly tutorials and trips to the cinema or go-kart track, you and your tutor develop your sense of identity. From this seed grows your confidence to rise to the challenges and opportunities of school life and beyond.
Advice Your tutors oversee your development – all the way from the nervous New Pupils’ Tea to the triumphant Leavers’ Day celebrations. From your first forays into new friendships, to lively debates among old friends in the Boarding House and to your choice of work experience as you look beyond Charterhouse.
Support With you at centre stage, your tutor, House team and beaks provide the supporting cast you need to succeed. In the words of our Head Counsellor, you are encouraged to ‘find support; be support; be yourself.’
C H A R T E R H O U S E U P C L O S E : w e l l b ein g
Time out for you Always an opportunity to slow down and enjoy quiet moments. There is a lively tempo to Charterhouse. Enthusiasm, participation, commitment – qualities Carthusians display in spades. Yet to be at our best in any community, we need to learn how to recharge our batteries away from the busyness. To chatter with a close friend, read or drift off into a daydream. To go somewhere quiet, where the only buzz is from the bees (Charterhouse bees – the pupils manage their own hives). Far from ‘wasting time’, slowing things down can be a lesson in taking care of ourselves. We encourage you to seek out a space regularly where you can be still, reflect and tune into your inner voice – whether that is sitting in chapel (three times a week), reading in the library (part of the timetable), or lounging in a comfy corner of your House (quite often!). In these quiet moments, you have the chance to set a moral compass, and find the courage to follow it. To reflect and develop perspective. As useful when contending with adult life’s difficult choices and completing priorities as it is when facing end of year exams. Sometimes the most rewarding opportunity we can offer is an invitation to find yourself in an empty space.
The wings of busy bees flap at 230 beats per second. The hearts of relaxed pupils beat at a more leisurely 70 beats per minute.
230 BEATS PER SECOND
C H A R T E R H O U S E U P C L O S E : pe r se v e r a n c e
Your enduring spirit Little builds relationships and memories like a shared experience for the whole year group. Hour 1: Hour 8: Hour 15: Hour 20:
Excitement Afternoon tea ‘to take away’ Pitch black wrong turn Blister emerging
First Year Specialists have been tackling our ‘50-mile walk’ every year for the last 50 years. It is 24 hours to trek down lanes and up hills, over walls and under the stars, each step getting closer to the School. What starts in a walk ends in a significant mental and physical challenge, one designed to allow each pupil to understand their limits. Fitness and stamina count, but teamwork matters more. The ability to energise others when you are battling your own tiredness. The grit to get each other back to Charterhouse before the clock counts down. The moral courage to call it quits as a team at 23 hours and 12 minutes, or 46¾ miles, if the finishing line has proved beyond the group’s limits. You walk to test your own resolve and tenacity, and for the pride of giving your all. And you walk to discover the humbling reward of helping others, and accepting help in turn.
“Those who give up any time after Bramley (46¾ miles) are truly heroic: they know better than to go further than they feel they can, and that takes self-knowledge and courage.” Beak
24 HOURS
Our promise to Carthusians Carthusians will have a confident take on the world’s complexity and opportunity. An ability to make decisions for themselves. Take risks. They will be flexible, not brittle, in the face of change and resilient in the face of setback. They will be ready for challenge, because they will be experienced in it. They will be intellectually supple, able to continually think anew. They will have a critical scepticism of received wisdom, of doctrine. They will know the reward in serving others. They will know that you lead by first taking part. They will know you have to explore failing as part of achieving success. They will be comfortable in any social setting.
When a Carthusian heads out into the world, they will be ready to contribute to it.
They will be strengthened by a tradition of moral purpose. And they will travel light: unencumbered by the baggage of prejudice, entitlement or intellectual superiority. We can only guess at the challenges the world of the future will present. But at Charterhouse, as we always have, we are creating young people who will bring something new to those challenges faced.
Contact us To arrange your visit to Charterhouse, please contact the Admissions Office admissions@charterhouse.org.uk +44 (0)1483 291501 Charterhouse Godalming Surrey GU7 2DX