Hanford School

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Hanford believes children should be children for as long as possible, climbing trees, building dens, riding ponies, and playing in the garden. Giving girls free time is something Hanford has always believed in as it encourages girls to become lost in their imagination and develop creatively.
Class sizes are small normally 10-12 and there is learning support available if required. Alongside the core curriculum girls are taught handwork, where they make their school uniform skirt, and Art Appreciation (Art Apr) where can begin to understand and appreciate the cultural world around them. Music has always been central to life at Hanford with almost all girls learning at least one instrument or joining one of the choirs or folk group music composition is also offered as an activity.
We recently decided to switch off all ‘Smart devices’, iPhones, tablets, etc. during term time. Unplugging the girls from social media, games, and communications was not done to protect them but to encourage them to make their fun, they will have plenty of time to use social media but a relatively short time in which to be silly, fun-loving children. The girls use their free time to play games such as British Bulldog, riding the Hanford ponies, tending the chickens, gardening, or climbing trees.
Hanford teaches girls to combine having fun with working hard. A strong and committed teaching staff seeks to bring out the best in every girl. This combination of fun and hard work pays dividends when it comes to Common Entrance and Scholarships. There have been 50 scholarships and awards received by our girls in the past five years – evidence of this successful formula.
Sport is incredibly strong at Hanford – recent successes have seen our teams as county champions in rounders, tennis, and athletics.
Hanford is perhaps most famous for its ponies and stables which most girls choosing to have riding lessons and some testing their equestrian skills at local and national events including tetrathlons.
Hanford’s aims are as true today as when the school was founded in 1947 by the Canning family. Rev Clifford Canning and his wife, Enid, we're searching for the perfect place to start a girls’ school. They took a 5-year lease on the magnificent Jacobean Hanford House, near Blandford, and its grounds from Vivian Seymer. It proved to be such an ideal setting they decided to buy the property outright. Rev Canning had previously been a housemaster at Marlborough and Headmaster at Canford School but it was Enid’s dream to run a girls’ school. Her vision was that Hanford should be a school that felt like a family home believing happy girls would be successful.
Enid Canning made some progressive decisions all those years ago, decisions that have proven key to Hanford’s enduring success: no uniform, lots of ponies, and a comfortable open, relaxed atmosphere where girls could feel free to explore the school and grounds almost as if it was their own home. Hanford today seems very much unchanged. Old Girls returning as prospective parents quickly become nostalgic – remembering running across the lawn to dry off after swimming, outrageous dares, catching ponies for riding before breakfast, and Sarah C.

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