At St Helen’s, we believe that preparing pupils for a rewarding and fulfilling life beyond school is our ultimate goal.

It can be achieved partly by excellent academic teaching, a broad extra-curricular programme and a happy, supportive environment — but St Helen’s goes beyond this by placing outstanding emphasis on higher education and careers education.

Tutors, subject specialists, former pupils, parents and qualified advisors all support the girls through the school with their subject choices, work experience and higher education plans. Thus, students can make the best decisions for the future and are motivated to implement their plans successfully.

Our record of university successes speaks for itself — our acceptance rate at university is the highest ever against a national decline and all our current Year 13 have received at least one offer for their chosen course, including medicine, veterinary medicine and law.

A programme of careers education from Year 7 upwards enables each student to develop an understanding of the world of work and knowledge of the careers likely to suit her individual skills.

The ISI inspection of March 2010 rated this programme as “excellent” and we have received the ‘Investors in Careers’ award since 2002, stating St Helen’s had “the highest standard” in 2009.