Short-Stay Immersion Programme at Thornton College

Short-stay pupils join Thornton College as full members of their year group: they follow the normal timetable of lessons, all taught in English, and are assigned a buddy in class to help them settle in. ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) is available alongside the timetable for girls who want extra language support. Stays are arranged as a day place, weekly boarding or full boarding, and the school takes girls from Year 3 (age 7) to Year 13 (age 18).

The weekly rate is quoted gross and includes lunch. It covers lessons on the normal school timetable, the buddy scheme, pastoral care in the day school and, for boarders, care from the dedicated boarding team. A deposit and a registration fee are charged separately and are listed under extras. Girls whose parents live overseas must have an educational guardian appointed, in line with the school’s guardianship policy.

Boarders live in the school’s own houses — Barton, the main Manor building, and Chastillon — rather than in a separate block, so they go upstairs to bed and the school’s facilities stay part of everyday life until bedtime. Most girls sleep in large bedrooms with high ceilings, natural light and wash basins, with bathrooms and showers close by; girls in Year 10 have single beds in twin bedrooms, and Year 13 girls have their own bedroom in The Villa, a detached house in the school grounds. The school notes that rooms and accommodation options vary from year to year with the size and make-up of each cohort. The boarding community is international, with girls from Spain, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, China, Canada, France, Nigeria and Germany among others; weekly boarding and full boarding are both available.

The published weekly rate is quoted gross, including lunch.

Weekday evenings in the boarding house have their own traditions — Trivia Tuesdays, Film Fridays and Sundae Sundays. Weekends bring trips out, from the local cinema and shops to days in London and Oxford and outings to Alton Towers.

The school stands in 25 acres of parkland. Boarders use the dance studio, sports hall, tennis courts, music practice rooms and library as part of ordinary evening life, because boarding is inside the main building.

Thornton is an all-girls school, and its boarding house is deliberately small-scale and family-like. Its ISI inspection report noted that boarding, with its multicultural diversity, is a catalyst for the respect that all pupils show towards each other. The site is 32 minutes by train from Milton Keynes to London Euston and within reach of Heathrow, Luton, Birmingham and East Midlands airports; the school arranges airport transfers through a family-run taxi service it works with.