Greenfields School

Few independent schools in the country teach the way Greenfields does. This co-educational day and boarding school in Forest Row, East Sussex, runs the whole journey from a preschool for two-year-olds up to A-levels, and it does so through Study Technology, a learning method drawn from the work of L. Ron Hubbard and delivered under the Applied Scholastics banner. The roll is small, currently around 128 pupils against a capacity of 250, which keeps classes intimate and the atmosphere familial. Founded in 1981 by Margaret Hodkin, the school sits on a 30-acre site and takes boarders as well as day families. In March 2024 several regulatory standards were judged not met; by December 2024, after substantial changes, the school met all of them. The motto, Education for Life, captures the founding idea: pupils should be able to use what they learn, not just pass exams.

What sets Greenfields apart is not a single building or a sports trophy cabinet but a distinctive philosophy of how children should learn. The school is an Applied Scholastics member, and its classrooms are built around Study Technology, a structured method that aims to make sure pupils genuinely understand a subject before moving on, rather than memorising it for a test. Andrew Hodgson, who became Headteacher in January 2024 and is himself a former pupil who left in 1989, describes a culture of industriousness and camaraderie that the school has carried since the 1980s. Parents considering Greenfields should understand this method up front: it is the defining feature of daily life here, and it is what most distinguishes the school from a conventional independent.

The scale is deliberately small. With a roll well under its 250 capacity, Greenfields functions as a family-sized school where staff know every child and year groups blend easily. That intimacy runs from the preschool through to the sixth form common room. The site itself, 30 acres on the edge of Ashdown Forest, gives younger pupils room to roam and older students a quiet rural setting for study.

The community is genuinely international. Greenfields welcomes day pupils from the surrounding Sussex and Surrey villages alongside boarders from across the world, and it runs short English-immersion programmes for overseas learners. The result is a multicultural mix unusual for a school of this size, and one that builds high levels of mutual respect and cultural understanding among pupils. The school is a member of the Independent Schools Association and a Cambridge Assessment International Education partner, and it sits within the Greenfields Educational Trust, the registered charity Margaret Hodkin established in 1982 to run it.

Greenfields spans three exam stages, and the picture differs by phase. In the primary school, pupils make good progress and assessment practice is rigorous, with the early years curriculum implemented systematically. Teachers across the lower school have strong subject knowledge, used to good effect particularly in the early years and in art. The school does not publish standardised primary league-table results, which is common for a small independent, so the early-years and junior strength is best judged through the close tracking that small classes allow and through a visit.

At GCSE the cohort is very small, with just nine pupils completing Year 11 in the most recent year. With single-figure entries the school does not sit at the top of the GCSE measures, and parents should weigh outcomes carefully here: with so few candidates, a single result moves the picture sharply, so it is far more useful to ask about the specific subjects your child would take and how individuals have done in them. Secondary pupils did not always make consistent progress, in part because the school lacked a common entry assessment, so teachers could not reliably pin down each student's starting point or measure progress against wider norms. By December 2024 that had been addressed: staff training was put in place to help teaching match pupils of differing prior attainment, and teachers began monitoring achievement more closely. Parents of academically able teenagers, or of those needing to catch up, should ask how progress is now tracked through the senior school.

The sixth form is where the school's measured results are strongest. At A-level, 22% of grades were awarded at A*, with a further 11% at A and 22% at B, so roughly 56% of entries reached A* to B. For comparison, the average across England is about 24% at A* to A and 47% at A* to B, which places Greenfields close to the England average for top grades and a little ahead on the A* to B measure. Within the FindMySchool sixth-form rankings, which are proprietary rankings built from official A-level data, Greenfields sits 2nd in its Redhill local area and around 816th in England, putting it in solid, middle-tier territory among schools in England. The sixth form offers a broad menu of around 15 A-levels, spanning the sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths), humanities (History, Geography, Economics and Business), languages including Spanish, and creative subjects from Art, Craft and Design to Drama and Theatre Studies and Photography, so a small cohort still has genuine choice. As always with a small sixth form, individual results carry weight, and prospective families should ask about subject-by-subject outcomes for the courses they care about.

Teaching at Greenfields is shaped end to end by Study Technology. The method breaks learning into clear steps, insists that pupils clear up anything they do not understand before progressing, and ties abstract study to practical application, the idea being that a child should be able to do something with what they have learned. Teachers use varied approaches and, in most lessons, manage behaviour calmly and well. Subject knowledge is a real strength, especially in the early years and in art, where staff use it to draw pupils in.

Class sizes are small throughout, and in the sixth form that often means close to one-to-one tuition, with timetabled lessons balanced against independent study periods. This is a clear advantage for pupils who benefit from individual attention or who are catching up, including international students moving into an English-language curriculum.

The honest counterpoint, identified in March 2024, was that secondary teaching had not consistently established where each student was starting from, partly for want of a uniform entry test, and that planning did not always adapt well enough for pupils with additional needs. By December 2024 the school had acted on this: teachers were given specific training, including on supporting pupils with SEND, and were monitoring achievement, giving clearer feedback and sequencing lessons more carefully. Questioning in lessons also improved. Parents whose child has a specific learning profile should still discuss provision directly with the school.

Greenfields keeps children on one site from preschool to the end of the sixth form, so the most common journey is internal: pupils move up through the primary phase into the senior school and on into Year 12 without changing school. Progression into the sixth form follows published entry requirements rather than being automatic, which is normal for an independent of this kind.

Because the leaving cohorts are very small, published destination statistics are limited, and the school does not put out detailed university breakdowns with named institutions and counts. The school itself reports that in recent years its sixth-form leavers have gone on to a university place, a claim families should explore in person by asking which universities and courses recent students actually reached. The honest position is that Greenfields is a small school whose strength is individual attention rather than a long published roll of competitive university destinations, and parents wanting hard destination data should request it directly from the sixth-form team.

Greenfields is non-selective and admits pupils on a rolling basis, so families can enquire and enrol at most points in the year rather than waiting for a single annual deadline. Entry runs from the preschool, which takes children from age two, through Reception and the junior years, into the senior school and the sixth form, with boarding available from age 11 (or from Year 6 in some cases).

The process is personal rather than test-driven. Families begin with an enquiry, then book a tour, which the school offers on weekdays at 10am, 1pm and 2:30pm, and prospective pupils can take an optional trial day before deciding. Applications go to the admissions team, the Head of School reviews them and may request an interview, and a place is confirmed once an acceptance letter is returned with a deposit. For sixth-form entry, the published requirement is five GCSEs at grade C or above including English and Mathematics, with resits of those core subjects permitted; international students without GCSEs can follow a longer pathway that builds up to A-level study.

A non-refundable application fee of £50 applies, and a deposit secures the place once offered, set at £200 for UK applicants and £500 for international families, credited against the first term's invoice once the child starts. Families using government-funded hours for the preschool or Reception are exempt from the registration fee and deposit. If you are weighing the move, the FindMySchool map and saved-schools shortlist make it easy to line Greenfields up against other Sussex and Surrey independents while you visit.

Boarding is part of what makes Greenfields distinctive, and it is run at a deliberately small, homely scale. The school offers full boarding, which includes weekends and the full programme of activities and excursions, and weekday boarding, with students home from Friday to Monday. Boarders are aged from 11 upwards and live in single-sex accommodation, with boys and girls each in their own secure wing of the main building on the 30-acre site.

The boarding mix is international, drawing students from across the world alongside UK families, which gives the house a genuinely global feel for its size. Weekends bring organised trips, with full boarders heading to London, Brighton, Oxford and Cambridge, and activities ranging from trampolining, ice skating and swimming to outdoor pursuits such as cycling, horse-riding, sailing and climbing. Inspectors found boarding leaders sensitive to boarders' wellbeing and quick to provide valued support, and boarders themselves describe a real family atmosphere.

It is worth being clear-eyed about the journey here. In March 2024 weekend activity for boarders was thin, the accommodation met only minimum standards and was not always well maintained, and there was no formal route for boarders to raise concerns about boarding life. By December 2024 that had changed markedly: leaders had surveyed boarders on what they wanted, widened the range of age-appropriate activities and free time, and tightened the systems and risk assessments around boarding. Families considering boarding should still visit, see the houses for themselves, and ask how the weekend programme now runs across a full term.

For all the questions raised about its regulatory paperwork, Greenfields has consistently been judged to look after its children well day to day. Even in March 2024, when other standards were judged not met, those covering pupils' physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing, and those covering their social and economic education and contribution to society, were met. For the most part the arrangements to keep pupils safe, including in the early years and in boarding, were effective, and boarding leaders were attuned to boarders' welfare throughout.

The school describes a friendly, caring and safe environment with zero tolerance of drugs or bullying, and it teaches a values programme, The Way to Happiness, alongside the academic curriculum. The small roll helps: in a school where staff know every child, pastoral problems are hard to miss.

Safeguarding is the area where the school had the most to do and the most progress to show. In March 2024 safeguarding standards were not consistently met: records were not centralised and there was no formal process for staff to share low-level concerns. The school responded with a new electronic recording system, an enlarged and better-qualified safeguarding team, prompt action by the designated lead, clear low-level reporting procedures and effective oversight by the proprietor. The latest ISI monitoring inspection, in December 2024, confirmed the safeguarding standards were met. Parents should still ask to see current safeguarding arrangements, as every family should at any school.

Creative arts are the clearest co-curricular strength at Greenfields, and they trace straight back to the founder. Margaret Hodkin set up the Greenfields Theatre Company, which still stages annual productions with pupils involved in every aspect of the show, from acting to sets and lighting, and the school's performing space is the Margaret Hodkin Creative Arts Centre, named in her memory. For a small school, having a dedicated arts centre and a long-running theatre company gives drama and the arts a real institutional home rather than an occasional outing. The annual production becomes a whole-school event, and the hands-on, learn-by-doing involvement in lighting, sets and stage management mirrors the school's wider belief that pupils should be able to apply what they study.

Music sits alongside drama, with instrumental and dance lessons offered as part of the wider programme, and art is a noted academic and creative strength, with the quality of teaching in the subject a particular highlight. Pupils can also work towards the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, which adds expedition, volunteering and skills strands to school life and is well suited to the school's rural, outdoor setting on the edge of Ashdown Forest.

Sport and recreation are provided at the scale you would expect of a family-sized school rather than a large games-focused independent: football pitches, tennis and basketball courts, and indoor options such as table tennis and a games lounge. For boarders, the weekend programme broadens this considerably, with horse-riding, sailing, climbing, cycling, swimming and ice skating among the activities, plus trips to nearby cities. The honest read is that Greenfields offers a solid, varied set of activities anchored by genuinely strong creative arts, rather than an exhaustive menu; by late 2024 the school had widened what was on offer, particularly for older pupils and boarders.

Greenfields publishes its fees by term, with three terms in the school year, and all figures include VAT. For 2025-26, day tuition runs from £2,600 per term in Reception, rising through the junior years (£2,870 to £3,290 per term) to £4,700 per term in Year 7 and £6,180 per term in Year 11. Sixth-form day fees are £6,430 per term in Year 12 and £6,670 per term in Year 13. As a rough annual guide, senior-school day fees work out at around £14,100 to £18,500 a year, and sixth-form day fees at about £19,300 to £20,000 a year, taking the published term fee across three terms.

Boarding is charged on top of tuition for ages 11 to 17, at £6,120 per term for full boarding (seven nights) and £5,180 per term for weekday boarding (five nights). On top of fees there are yearly book charges by year group and, in exam years, examination fees that the school estimates at £300 to £700 depending on the entries.

Greenfields does not advertise the means-tested bursaries or competitive academic scholarships that larger independents run. Instead it operates discounts: a longevity discount that reduces senior and sixth-form tuition by 5% for each full year previously spent in the phase below (the published senior fees show the substantially lower rates this can reach), plus a sibling discount of 5% for a second child and 15% for a third, with total discounts capped at 30%. Families who expect to keep a child at the school for many years, or who are enrolling siblings, stand to gain most from this structure. Confirm the exact figures and any current help with the school before committing.

Greenfields is an all-through school on a single 30-acre site in Forest Row, on the edge of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, with the preschool taking children from age two and the sixth form running to age 18. The preschool and Reception are charged by the hour or term, and government-funded early-years hours are often available for eligible families; for current nursery and preschool costs, see the school website and government guidance on funded childcare. An optional school bus service runs, with fares published separately, and the rural location, a few miles from East Grinstead and within reach of the Sussex and Surrey borders, means most senior families travel in by car or take up boarding. Preschool places are charged by the hour, which suits families wanting flexible early-years days. Tours run on weekdays at set times, and as a rolling-admissions school Greenfields can often arrange visits and entry outside the usual autumn cycle.

The educational method is unconventional. Greenfields teaches through Study Technology under the Applied Scholastics banner, a method derived from the work of L. Ron Hubbard. This is the defining feature of the school, and families should research the approach and visit lessons to be sure it suits their child before committing.

Standards were not met in 2024, then met. In March 2024 the standards for leadership and management, quality of education, and safeguarding were judged not met; by December 2024, after substantial changes, all standards were met. This was a genuine shortfall that has been addressed, but parents should read both reports and ask how the improvements are being sustained.

Cohorts are very small and destination data is limited. With single-figure GCSE and small sixth-form groups, league-table averages are volatile and the school publishes little detailed university-destination data. Ask for subject-level results and recent leavers' destinations directly.

Numbers have fallen. The roll dropped markedly through 2024, from around 176 to 133, before settling near current levels. A smaller school can mean exceptional individual attention but also narrower peer groups and subject choices; discuss class sizes for your child's year.

Greenfields is a distinctive, small all-through school whose appeal rests on three things: a deliberately intimate scale, a strong creative-arts tradition rooted in its founder, and an unconventional teaching method that families either embrace or pass over. Its sixth-form A-level results sit in solid middle-tier territory for England, the primary and early years are a genuine strength, and pastoral care has consistently been judged sound even through a difficult inspection cycle that the school has since put right. It is best suited to families drawn to the Study Technology approach who want individual attention in a friendly, international, family-sized setting, including international boarders and pupils who flourish with close one-to-one support. The main caveat is the method itself, which is unlike a conventional independent and deserves a careful visit, alongside the small cohorts and the 2024 inspection history, which families should read in full before deciding.