Dear Parents and Guardians,
I trust 2026 has begun well for you and your families and, with half-term now on the horizon, you and your sons are looking forward to a break after a busy first few weeks of the year. My thanks go to all of you for the encouragement and goodwill shown during my first term and for the many ways in which you contribute to life at Whitgift School. Your attendance at a whole plethora of events, commitment to our Whitgift For All bursary scheme, engagement with my colleagues and, of course, the guidance you provide to your sons are all greatly valued.
A further thank you to those of you who took the precious time to complete our parent survey. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us to understand your experience of the School and in shaping our priorities for the years ahead. I am therefore pleased to share a brief overview of the themes that emerged and to bring you up to date on our progress with strategic planning.
Across the whole School, you expressed very high levels of satisfaction with the quality of education and the all-round experience your sons receive. Teaching, pupil behaviour, the atmosphere of the School and the breadth of opportunities available were highlighted as particular strengths. Many of you used words such as excellent, diverse, ambitious and inspirational to describe the School, and there was strong appreciation for the dedication and expertise of our staff.
You continue to place great value on our academic reputation, facilities and extensive co-curricular provision. The sense of community and the opportunities for personal growth were highlighted repeatedly, and diversity (in multiple senses) was frequently cited as a strength. A large majority of you commented favourably on the dynamism, culture and overall ‘feel’ of the School, noting that this emotional connection often began when you first visited Whitgift – frequently at one of our well-received Open Days.
In relation to boarding, parents were overwhelmingly positive about the care provided, particularly the commitment of our Founder’s House staff. Suggestions included more weekend trips, clearer guidance around phones and devices, and continued attention to food quality.
You also helpfully identified some areas for improvement. Catering - especially at weekends for boarders - was mentioned by a number of parents, as were occasional friendship concerns in the younger years and the ways in which we, and your sons, deal with academic pressures felt by pupils in the older years at Whitgift. Several of you expressed an ambition for increased consistency in teaching quality, additional academic stretch, more guidance in careers and subject choices, and a desire for key information to be brought together on a single platform to simplify communication. Despite this latter point, the overall quality of our communications was noted positively; something that has not always been the case in parents’ surveys I have encountered in other schools.
A number of broader themes also emerged across the survey. You are keen for us to prioritise investment in teachers, training and bursaries, and many commented on the importance of retaining experienced staff. There were also helpful observations about co-curricular scheduling and the continued prioritisation of breadth for all pupils. I am pleased to note that there is significant overlap between these observations and the goals identified by the School’s Executive Team.
Finally, while fees and recent changes relating to VAT are understandably on your minds, the overwhelming message is one of confidence: a strong belief that Whitgift delivers very good value for money and meets the high expectations you rightly hold.
Thank you again for your constructive feedback and for the support you give us. We will use these insights to shape our next steps and to ensure that we continue to provide the very best education and experience for every boy.
A major part of this shaping is centred on our strategic planning process, which is now making real headway. We are on the cusp of speaking with the boys about work we have undertaken around our vision for Whitgift, its values and its identity. Many of you will perhaps have seen, or been involved in, similar work in your own organisations and, as my Executive Team and I have found, different people can interpret these concepts in different ways. For the sake of clarity, I thought the following might be of interest:
- Vision – our goal for Whitgift School: the articulation of our aims
- Values – the principles that guide our decisions; our ‘internal compass’
- Identity – our reputation, what we ‘feel’ like and the ‘way we do things’ here
We will pass the completed work to colleagues and then ask boys, through the School Council and other small focus groups, to offer their views. Concurrently, we are also formulating the key threads of our strategic plan that will sit beneath this overarching structure, and we are excited by the emerging initiatives and opportunities therein. We are confident that these will add to the already outstanding provision at Whitgift and have a significant impact on how we continue to stretch, support and challenge your sons now and in the future.
We will then bring our fully formed proposal to Governors in the second half of this term, with a view to launching our strategy and vision to all in our community in the Trinity Term.
With best wishes for a successful Lent Term,
Toby Seth
Headmaster