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Last reviewed: July 2026 · Rankings and key information above update regularly, however, this review below is refreshed bi-annually and may not reflect recent changes. If you spot anything outdated or inaccurate, please let us know.
"So Hateth She Derknesse," runs the motto Redmaids' High carries from a Chaucer poem, and for a girls' day school whose line reaches back to 1634 that hatred of darkness still sets the tone. This is the oldest surviving girls' school in the country, formed in 2016 from the merger of Red Maids' School and Redland High, and since February 2025 the newest member of the Girls' Day School Trust. Around 794 pupils and students fill its junior, senior and sixth-form phases across two Bristol sites in Westbury-on-Trym. Head Paul Dwyer leads a school ranked first in Bristol for both GCSE and A-level results, with the sixth form's results sitting in the top 2.5% of schools in England. Behind the daisy on the crest sit selective entry, deep pastoral provision and a 16-acre sports complex.
Two histories run under one roof here. Red Maids' School was founded in 1634 by John Whitson, a Bristol merchant, mayor and Member of Parliament, to clothe and educate poor girls of the city, apparelled in the red that gave the school its name; Redland High followed in 1882, founded by the Reverends T G Rose and Urijah Thomas as a school for the daughters of Bristol's growing middle class. Their 2016 merger produced Redmaids' High and, with it, a combined heritage the school dates back close to four centuries. The Chaucer motto and the daisy that still marks the crest both arrived from the Redland side, and the blended identity is worn without fuss. For a school of this age, remarkably little of its energy goes into looking backwards.
The bigger recent change is structural. On 1 February 2025 Redmaids' High became the 26th school in the Girls' Day School Trust, the group that runs a network of independent girls' schools and academies across England and Wales. Membership brings shared research on educating girls, a national alumnae network and pooled resources, and it places a long-standing local institution inside a well-regarded family of schools. For parents, the practical significance is stability and reach rather than any change to the daily character of the place: the daisy stays, the trust adds ballast behind it.
That character reads as purposeful and kind. The school describes an inclusive community built on happiness, aspiration and support for others, and its three stated values turn on knowing each girl individually, helping her understand her own strengths, and setting her up for lifelong learning. A secure and supportive atmosphere lets girls thrive rather than merely cope, and a kind community keeps instances of bullying rare and handled through a well-structured anti-bullying strategy. It is a single-sex environment where academic ambition runs high but is not the only currency, and where the tone is collaborative rather than combative.
The exam record is the clearest evidence of that ambition. At GCSE, Redmaids' High places 159th of 3,895 schools in England for results, which sits in the top 4.1% and well above the England average. That is the academic headline, ranked against every school in England with published GCSE results, state and independent alike. On the FindMySchool overall measure, which blends results with an inspection score, the school ranks 131st of 3,887, and within Bristol it is first. These are proprietary FindMySchool rankings built from official data.
The underlying grades explain the standing. More than half of GCSE entries were awarded a grade 9 or 8 (54%), and 73% reached grade 7 or above. In a system where a grade 7 marks the old A boundary, close to three in four results clearing that bar is the sign of a strongly academic cohort rather than a handful of high performers pulling up an average. It also tells prospective families something about spread: strength at Redmaids' High is broad, not concentrated at the very top.
The sixth form is stronger still. Its A-level results rank 63rd of 2,562 schools in England, inside the top 2.5% and well above the England average, the same direction of travel as the GCSE picture but from a higher base. The overall position is 56th of 2,561, and again first in Bristol. At grade level the gap to the wider system is stark: 72% of A-level entries reached A* or A, against an England average near 24%, and 90% reached A* to B, against roughly 47%. Nearly a third of all entries, 32%, were graded A*. For families weighing a fee, that consistency across two exam stages, GCSE and A-level, is the number that matters most.
England ranks and key metrics (where available)
A-Level A*-B
90.45%
% of students achieving grades A*-B
GCSE 9–7
73.1%
% of students achieving grades 9-7
Ranking figures update automatically as our data refreshes and are the definitive source. Any rankings quoted in the review text were accurate when it was written and may since have changed.
The teaching that produces those grades is well-structured and engaging, built on secure subject knowledge and a deliberate mix of collaborative and independent work so that girls learn both to reason together and to think alone. The curriculum across the school is broad and sequenced for continuity, so a girl moving up from the junior school into the senior years and on into the sixth form meets a coherent progression rather than a series of restarts. That vertical join is one of the quieter advantages of an all-through school: subject departments know exactly what a Year 7 arriving from the junior school has already covered.
Two features stand out for parents thinking about fit. First, the junior phase is not treated as a holding pattern. Girls make good progress in English and mathematics throughout the junior school, which is where the habits behind later results are built and where an all-through model earns its keep. Second, support for girls who learn differently is woven into ordinary teaching rather than bolted on. Pupils with special educational needs or disabilities are identified early and monitored through individual learning profiles in the junior school and individual education plans in the senior school, with teachers issued detailed learning profiles so that provision follows the child into every classroom rather than living in a single support room.
Post-16, girls choose from a broad A-level programme, recently spanning around 31 subjects across languages, sciences, humanities and creative options, alongside an Extended Project Qualification that carries UCAS points and gives students a taste of independent research before university. The breadth matters at this stage: a girl set on medicine, one heading for modern languages and one aiming at the creative industries can each build a coherent set of subjects without leaving the school. The Extended Project, taken alongside three A-levels, is the piece admissions tutors tend to notice: it asks a student to run a substantial piece of independent research to a deadline, which is closer to the rhythm of a degree than any taught course.
The sixth form has its own purpose-built centre, with a refurbished common room, contemporary classrooms, dedicated study areas, a careers library and an on-site cafe, intended as a distinct base for the oldest students rather than a corner of the senior school. Entry to Year 12 is by academic requirement rather than automatic progression, so the school's own Year 11 students meet the same standards as external applicants, and the year group recruits from outside as well as from within. That external intake keeps the cohort fresh and gives able girls elsewhere in Bristol a route in at sixteen. The centre and the specialist guidance around it are pitched squarely at the transition to higher education, with one-to-one mentoring for UCAS, Oxbridge, medicine and dentistry, degree apprenticeships and overseas applications.
Most leavers go on to degrees. Of the 2023/24 leaving cohort of 68 students, 69% progressed to university, with a further 6% into other further education, 10% into employment and 1% into apprenticeships. Recent destinations have included Durham, Bristol, Exeter, Birmingham, Warwick, Cardiff and Newcastle, and in 2025 six students left to read medicine, one of the more competitive routes the careers team supports directly through mock interviews and admissions-test preparation.
Oxbridge success is real if selective. In a recent cycle, twelve students applied to Oxford or Cambridge and three won places, all at Cambridge and all taken up. Those are small numbers against a modest year group, but the combination of medicine offers and Cambridge places points to a sixth form that can push its strongest candidates onto the most competitive courses. For most girls the story is a solid research-university destination rather than a headline name, which is arguably the more useful measure. Families comparing destinations across the city can line the school up against others using the local hub comparison tool.
Total Offers
3
Offer Success Rate: 25%
Cambridge
3
Offers
Oxford
0
Offers
Redmaids' High is academically selective, with several entry points rather than a single gateway. The main intakes are at Year 7 and the sixth form, with additional entry at Year 3 into the junior school and at Year 9. The Year 7 entrance examination is held in early January and covers English, mathematics, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, supplemented by a school report and an interview, so a place turns on more than a single test morning. That mix rewards a rounded candidate rather than one drilled purely for a written paper.
Registration runs through an online portal, and the school assesses each applicant against the standard expected for the year group rather than filling to a fixed pass mark alone. Sixth-form entry is governed by GCSE grades and subject requirements, which the school sets out for prospective Year 12 students. As a private school, Redmaids' High sits outside the Local Authority coordinated admissions system, so there is no catchment distance to weigh and no last-distance-offered figure to interpret: proximity helps with the daily commute, not with priority for a place. Parents can still use the FindMySchool map to gauge travel time from home before committing to the entrance process, and to save the school to a shortlist alongside others under consideration.
Pastoral provision is one of the school's genuine strengths and is resourced accordingly. Three in-school counsellors are available for confidential conversations, and students can self-refer at any time, a low-barrier route that matters most for the girls least likely to ask for help. Three school nurses are on site until 5pm each day. Safeguarding is effective: inspectors describe a well-embedded safeguarding culture in which staff report concerns promptly and designated leaders act swiftly with support from external agencies.
The structures around wellbeing are specific rather than generic. A Happiness Hub helps Year 7 girls settle friendships and build confidence in their first year; a counsellor-led Breakfast Club supports Year 12 students with stress management as academic pressure rises; and sixth-form Well-Being Ambassadors extend peer support down the school. A comprehensive PSHE and relationships education programme, enriched by visiting speakers chosen for a diversity of perspective, rounds out the offer. Learning support sits within this pastoral frame too: dyslexia screening runs at entry to Year 7, Year 10 and the sixth form, with a specialist dyslexia teacher and assessor providing in-class and one-to-one help, so that a specific difficulty is caught at each transition rather than left to surface in exam results.
The co-curricular offer is broad and, unusually, well-equipped. Sport runs across two sites: the 12-acre Westbury campus carries an astroturf pitch and sports hall, while The Lawns Sports Complex near Cribbs Causeway adds 16 acres with an FIH-standard hockey pitch, tennis and netball courts, cricket and athletics space and a 3G astro pitch. Netball has a genuine performance pathway on top: the school hosts the Severn Stars Nova Academy Under 17 squad, one of only ten such academies across the South West and the sole one in Bristol, with weekly training, strength and conditioning and sports therapy under head coach Kellie Hull. For girls whose sport lies outside the mainstream, equine activities run through registration with the National Schools Equine Association, which is not something most city day schools can offer.
Music and performance are built on real infrastructure. Redland Hall, opened in September 2017, is a 360-seat auditorium with a 2015 Steinway Model D grand piano, a professional LED lighting rig and a full sound system; the separate Performing Arts Centre offers retractable seating for 160 and a Kawai GE30 piano. Those spaces feed a Symphony Orchestra, a Chamber Choir, a Swing Band and an A Cappella group, with a Musical Theatre Group carrying drama and music together and the junior school running its own choir and orchestra. The point of a 360-seat hall is not the seat count but the ambition it implies: girls perform to a real audience in a proper venue, and the youngest do so on the same stage as the oldest. Instrumental teaching feeds these ensembles from the junior school upwards, so a girl who starts an instrument in Year 3 has a clear line of progression into the senior Symphony Orchestra.
Beyond sport and stage, the outdoor programme is a serious commitment. Redmaids' High describes itself as the largest provider of Duke of Edinburgh training in Bristol, running Bronze, Silver and Gold levels, and layers residential adventure across the year groups. Junior girls in Years 3 to 5 go caving, climbing and canoeing with Mendip Outdoor Pursuits; Year 6 heads to Skern Lodge for orienteering, abseiling, raft racing, surfing and bivouacking; and Year 8 takes on the Buddens Activity Centre. It adds up to a co-curriculum where a girl can find a stage, a pitch, a saddle or a rock face without leaving the school's orbit, and where the adventurous side of the programme starts young rather than waiting until the senior years.
One caveat sits inside this strength. Not every pupil currently reaches the full range of the school's partnership projects programme, and widening access to it is the school's own stated next step, a reminder that breadth and even access are not always the same thing.
For 2026/27, day fees are charged termly and inclusive of VAT: £4,987 per term in Years 3 and 4, £5,048 in Years 5 and 6, and £7,408 in Years 7 through 13. On a three-term year that puts senior and sixth-form fees at roughly £22,000 a year. A registration fee of £100 and a refundable acceptance deposit of £450 apply at entry, and families with a third or subsequent daughter at the school receive a 20% sibling discount, a meaningful saving for larger families committed to single-sex education.
Financial support runs alongside the fees. The school offers means-tested bursaries with the stated aim of keeping places open regardless of socio-economic background, so the headline figure is not the whole story for lower-income families who qualify. Redmaids' High also runs Development Grants for Year 9 students and sixth formers, funding the pursuit of a particular skill, talent or idea rather than reducing tuition. Parents should confirm current bursary thresholds and award levels directly with the school, as these are assessed case by case.
Fees shown include VAT. Termly fees for 2026/27 are stated.
The school operates across two sites in north-west Bristol: the main Westbury campus in Westbury-on-Trym and The Lawns near Cribbs Causeway, with transport between home and school a real consideration for families spread across the city. Redmaids' High runs its own minibus network, including Redland, Clifton and South Bristol routes, booked and tracked through the Vectare platform, which lets families reserve, amend or cancel travel and follow buses in real time. Exact daily hours and any junior-school wraparound arrangements are best confirmed with the school directly, as they are not consistently published. The sixth-form centre's on-site cafe gives older students a base through the day.
Entry is competitive, and by design. Redmaids' High is academically selective at every main entry point, with a Year 7 examination in English, mathematics and reasoning plus interview. The education is strong, but a place is not a given; families should prepare for a genuine assessment rather than a formality.
Cost is significant, even with support. Senior and sixth-form fees of around £22,000 a year, before extras such as trips and music tuition, put the school beyond many households. Bursaries and a sibling discount soften this for some, but the underlying commitment is a large one.
Leadership is in transition. Head Paul Dwyer is due to leave at the end of the 2025/26 year after six years, and the Girls' Day School Trust is appointing a successor. Prospective parents may wish to ask about the timeline and the incoming head before committing.
Access to enrichment is being reviewed. Not every pupil currently reaches the full partnership projects programme. It is a narrow point against a broad offer, but worth raising if community and outreach activities matter to your daughter's experience.
Redmaids' High is a heritage girls' school that has kept its academic edge while modernising its structure. Results are the anchor: first in Bristol at both GCSE and A-level, top 4.1% in England for GCSE and top 2.5% for A-level, achieved across a broad cohort rather than a selective few. Around those sit deep pastoral resourcing, serious sport and music facilities, an ambitious outdoor programme, and the backing of the Girls' Day School Trust. It is best suited to academically able girls whose families want a single-sex, all-through path from junior school to a well-supported sixth form, and who can meet both the entrance standard and the fees. The main caveats are cost, competitive entry and a headship change now underway, none of which undercuts a school performing near the top of its field.
Yes. Redmaids' High ranks first in Bristol for both GCSE and A-level results, placing in the top 4.1% of schools in England at GCSE and the top 2.5% at A-level. At its most recent ISI inspection in February 2025 the school met all of the Independent School Standards, with inspectors praising a secure and supportive atmosphere, effective safeguarding and results that exceed national averages. Strong pastoral care and well-equipped sport and music facilities round out the picture.
The school is academically selective with entry at Year 3, Year 7, Year 9 and the sixth form. The main Year 7 intake is decided by an entrance examination in early January covering English, mathematics, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, together with a school report and an interview. Registration is handled through an online portal, and sixth-form entry depends on GCSE grades and subject requirements.
For 2026/27, termly day fees inclusive of VAT are £4,987 in Years 3 and 4, £5,048 in Years 5 and 6, and £7,408 in Years 7 to 13, which works out at roughly £22,000 a year for the senior school and sixth form. A £100 registration fee and a refundable £450 acceptance deposit apply, and a 20% discount is available for a third or subsequent daughter. Means-tested bursaries and Development Grants are offered.
The sixth form ranks 63rd of 2,562 schools in England for A-level results, with 72% of entries graded A* or A. Around 69% of a recent leaving cohort progressed to university, including Durham, Bristol, Exeter, Warwick and others, and in 2025 six students left to read medicine. In a recent cycle, three girls won Cambridge places from twelve Oxbridge applications.
Yes. Redmaids' High is an all-through girls' school with a junior phase from Year 3, a senior school and a sixth form on its Westbury campus. Girls make good progress in English and mathematics in the junior years, and progression into the senior school and later into the sixth form is by academic standard rather than automatic, with the sixth form also recruiting students from outside the school.
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