We’re immensely proud of our recent review in The Good Schools Guide – the team recently came to visit us and meet our staff, parents, and pupils. Take a look at some of the highlights below and read the full review here.

Headmaster

Kieran McLaughlin, head of Durham School since 2014 and principal of the newly formed Durham Cathedral Schools Foundation since 2021. This means he has oversight of the Chorister School prep and pre-prep, created from the amalgamation of Durham Cathedral School and Bow Durham School.

A no-nonsense northerner originally from Merseyside and with a physics degree from Jesus College, Cambridge, he’s a teaching head with his feet firmly in the school and well thought of by parents. He is very keen to emphasise school’s MARK values: moral integrity, ambition, responsibility and kindness. We certainly saw these when we spoke to the confident and sparky pupils on our visits to both Durham and Choristers.

Teaching and learning

School is unashamedly academic with a reasonably broad, traditional curriculum. Pupils spoke highly of their relationships with teachers, mentioning GCSE and A-level workshops and teachers who ‘go the extra mile'.

Learning at Durham seems to bring out real energy in the kids; they know they are fortunate to be here. School site is fabulous, a leafy oasis with the feel of an Oxbridge college in the centre of Durham.

Around 60+ pupils on the SEN register receive support from school for mild dyslexia, ASC, ADHD and SEMH. SENCO and two learning support assistants provide targeted support in class and some small group intervention.

Sport, the arts and extracurricular

Durham has a venerable sporting history; cricket has been played since 1844, rugby since 1850 and rowing since 1838. The school's rowing club is the third oldest in the world and its rowing prowess is a particular source of pride, with crews regularly racing at Henley Royal Regatta and other national competitions.

Currently, the school is also the GB pentathlon hub in the North. The art we saw sang. Evocative paint smells, fantastic displays, and brilliant work on tone and colour blending as part of a study of Dali, the department is obviously a centre for artistic passion.

Drama and music are also real strengths, coming in for high praise from students and staff. Huge and very varied extracurricular programme. As one boarder said, ‘I’m living here so the opportunities are endless.'

In addition to team sports, there’s laser shooting, kicking club, mountain biking and much more. Academic options include debating society, the heretics club and model United Nations amongst others. There is also drama, DofE, charitable groups, creative arts, languages groups and a green club.

Pastoral care, inclusivity and discipline

Parents and pupils praise the pastoral care at Durham. The integrated house system creates a strong sense of family among pupils and, given the size of the houses, means that every pupil is very well-known and supported by both staff and their peers. This was doubtless a feature in the school gaining the Wellbeing Award for schools in 2020.

Pupils and parents

Durham has the feel of a school rooted in its area. Lots of local accents and a sense of down to earth common sense among the pupils and parents. Parents say that 'Pupils are pushed academically but not at the expense of the wider stuff and certainly not at a cost to their well-being, my children have never been made to feel they’ve failed’.

Parents who have experienced family trauma spoke very highly of the support they were given.