St Mary’s, Calne

St Mary’s Calne is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11-18, a happy, purposeful and flourishing community of around 360 pupils with an 80% to 20% boarding to day ratio.

Founded in 1873, the school has been providing an outstanding education for girls for 147 years, and our alumnae have prominent positions in every profession from the law, politics and medicine to the arts, drama and sport. There is a strong tradition of the core academic subjects and strength in science and mathematics, as well as modern languages, arts and humanities.

Our Sixth Form is flourishing and highly successful, with over 100 girls. The girls benefit from exceptional careers advice and work hard to achieve their goals. Their academic results are outstanding and the girls go on to study at top UK and American universities; the striking range of courses they embark upon shows the wealth of choice available to our pupils. Many of the Sixth Form also undertake extensive pieces of independent research in the form of the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ).

Located near the market town of Calne and amidst the Wiltshire Downs, an area of stunning natural beauty and historical significance, St Mary’s is also within easy reach of the university cities of Bath, Bristol and Oxford and just over an hour by train from London.

Our ideal location means that our girls benefit from a huge range of curriculum-enhancing opportunities as well as extra-curricular ones. We provide an exceptional, all-round education for girls – what makes St Mary’s a really distinctive school is its special blend of excellence in pastoral care and academic development in a nurturing environment.

The girls are articulate and confident as well as warm and caring, taking an active part in local community service. The St Mary’s staff are highly professional: their dedication underpins the warmth and vibrancy of this boarding community where the individual girl matters most. We offer an enormous range of opportunities for every girl in sport, music, art, drama and more.

In sport we have skiing, horse riding and fencing as well as hockey, netball, lacrosse and tennis. Girls sing in our renowned choirs and play in our orchestra – and take their music to faraway places from Italy to America. St Mary’s girls become independent thinkers and responsible citizens, empowered for the future and ready to take their place in the world as generations of our inspiring alumnae have done.