Since 1858, we have created opportunities for boys and girls to fulfill their academic potential, and to develop as confident young adults through the challenges and enjoyment of sport, music, drama, and many other extra-curricular activities.
We celebrate our history, as well as our stunning natural surroundings and much of our focus revolves around our heritage and location.
West Buckland welcomes children from 3 to 18, from the local area and worldwide, as day students and boarders into our rich, diverse, and friendly school community.
The highest performing co-educational day and boarding school in the South West peninsula and a Top 40 UK Independent co-ed boarding school.
20 minutes from Woolacombe beach – one of the closest surfing beaches to London! Mental and physical well-being are very important to us and we make the most of our stunning location to ensure our pupils have access to fresh air, space, and exercise.
We aim to provide a forward-thinking education consisting of personalized development, innovative experiences, and excellent learning. We believe that West Buckland School should be the school of choice in this part of the country, for day and boarding, 3-18 co-education for local, regional and international students.
The Estates Development Vision complements the School Strategic Plan to explore the potential development opportunities, in terms of buildings and facilities, that could be delivered over the next 10 years. Please take a look:
At West Buckland, we are developing a vision that steers pupils and parents through a changing and challenging educational landscape to give them the best possible chance in a future of global fluidity.
Charting a way through choppy waters requires the confidence to find solutions by thinking critically as well as creatively. We instill in our students the courage to act with a generous heart when making decisions, committed to doing what is right while caring for others and their community.
Forward Thinking – we are a school that has adopted a genuinely innovative approach to education, focusing beyond the classroom and developing important life skills.
Shortlisted for Boarding School of the Year – in the TES Independent School Awards 2019. A place where children stay younger longer – It is a place where they can grow and develop at their speed. The place where we focus on the PIE philosophy, offering Personalised, Innovative, and Excellent opportunities for our students.
A hothouse school – putting children under unnecessary pressures to succeed, eroding their love of learning, and reducing their self-esteem.
A school that believes that academic achievement creates the full person. We look for qualities beyond the confines of the classroom and nurture passion, drive, and enthusiasm.
Old fashioned? Quite the opposite. Our modern and state-of-the-art facilities ensure our students benefit from contemporary teaching methods, using the most up-to-date IT systems, and are exposed to a wide range of opportunities and information that will enable them to make informed decisions about their futures.
Durham University’s ‘Academic Value Added’ research published in February 2016 revealed: “Once prior attainment, socio-economic background, and gender are taken into account, pupils aged 16 in independent schools have gained the equivalent of two additional years of schooling compared to their state school peers.”
Attending an independent school from the prep years generates superior pupil performance at the ages of 4, 8, and 10. When the family background and prior educational attainment are allowed for, independent school pupils will have earned £58,000 more than their state peers by the age of 42.
Described as “a gem of a school in an outstanding location” by the Good Schools Guide, West Buckland School, founded in 1858 is set in 90 acres of stunning countryside close to the spectacular Atlantic coast in the South West of England. But it’s not just our location that is spectacular.
Our campus has been transformed in recent years, with over £14 million having been spent on the facilities, creating an environment which combines beautiful, traditional buildings, reflecting the school’s proud beginnings, with modern, spacious, light buildings, indicative of the forward-thinking school that we have become.
In 1852, a consumptive young clergyman called Joseph Lloyd Brereton became the rector of West Buckland. He had come to the fresh air of Exmoor for his health. He made friends with Lord Ebrington, (son of Earl Fortescue), who had also retired to Devon owing to ill health – in his case a bad eye infection. Ebrington (or Earl Fortescue, as he became on the death of his father) was as interested in education as Brereton. The result of their friendship was the West Buckland Farm and County School, set up – with a headmaster barely out of his teens, only three pupils, and a lot of optimism – in 1858.
The School was run as a private shareholding company and was designed to attract the sons of the ‘middle class’ – farmers, local tradesmen, and so on. Ordinary people. For this reason, the fees were kept lower than average – and the facilities were corresponding that much more spartan. The curriculum was modern – no more endless Latin and Greek. More Science and Maths. Religious education was a non-denominational – Christian feeling rather than Christian dogma. It was way ahead of its time.
The School prospered, the pupil numbers topping 150 within twenty-five years. But the Agricultural Depression of that time hit hard, and farmers could no longer afford even the modest fees. Numbers began to fall, a process not helped by a dispute between the then Headmaster and the Governors, which resulted in the Head leaving and taking over half the boys with him to set up another school. These and other troubles meant that the School came close to closure twice in a decade round about the turn of the century.
However, under a gifted new Headmaster, the Revd Harries, the School recovered. It changed its form of organization from a private-share company to an independent fee-paying school, and it changed its name from the Devon County School too, simply, West Buckland School.
Two world wars naturally made their impact, as they did on other schools, but by the end of the century, West Buckland had survived all crises and dramas. Through its Direct Grant status and, later, through the Assisted Places scheme, both of which removed the barrier to good secondary education which stood in the way of bright children from poor homes, it had continued to widen its scope of opportunity for the neighborhood. The opening of its gates to girls widened that scope further, and the development of a Preparatory School further still. It has grown to over 600 pupils – of whom about 120 are boarders – of both sexes, evenly split. It has been host to pupils from over fifty foreign countries too.
It constantly tries to raise funds to develop its facilities, in sport and in the setting up of bursaries – to continue its policy of giving a chance to bright children from less fortunate backgrounds. In the twenty-first century, it continues to do its best for its pupils – still ordinary people – according to its lights, as it has always done, while at the same remaining loyal to the ideals and aspirations of the Revd. Brereton and Earl Fortescue. We like to think they would approve of what has been achieved. Brereton and Fortescue were forward-thinking so, are we?
