Introduction

If you are new to Mayfield, I strongly encourage you to pay a visit to our community.

We don’t manufacture Open Mornings here: they are held on normal teaching days and are designed to be an honest and transparent reflection of school life. As such, you can expect to enjoy a typical Mayfield day, full of highs and lows, humour, exuberance, achievement, celebration, reflection, purpose and warmth.

Furthermore, we encourage you to visit several times, for Mayfield is a place of many parts. Academic life is a constant throughout the year but beyond the classroom you never know what you might encounter. Visit on a summer evening and you will likely find girls finishing their homework before swarming outside to play ‘doubles’ on the tennis courts, pitching tents in the grounds in preparation for a forthcoming expedition, or simply relaxing on the grass ahead of the barbeque which awaits them. But visit on another day and it might be determined hockey practice on the Astroturf, the choir singing in the Chapel, a theatre workshop in the Concert Hall or hot chocolate in the Chaplaincy common room.

The school’s ethos influences the entrance procedures as much as it does every other aspect of school life. Our aim will always be to educate with rigour the ‘whole person’ – mind, body, heart and soul – and thus we will not offer your daughter a place at Mayfield purely on the basis of what she manages to get down on paper in an examination. We will try to understand your daughter: her strengths and her weaknesses, what motivates her and what does not, her hopes for the future and, of course, yours.

We are proud of the high regard in which the School is held. Most recently, we have been listed in the Tatler Good Schools Guide for 2010. To read Tatler's review of Mayfield, click here.

I look forward to meeting you and your daughter in the months to come.

Tim Eaton BA, MA, PhD
Director of Admissions, Development & Marketing

Tim Eaton has worked in girls’ independent schools for five years, and at St Leonards-Mayfield School since January 2008. He brings to the school a strong academic background: he holds a BA, MA and PhD in Archaeology, has taught at undergraduate level, and is a published author.