When you join Leighton Park in Years 7 or 8, you’ll be welcomed into Fryer House – our “school within a school.” You’ll enjoy all the facilities and resources that Leighton Park has to offer, yet still have your own building and dedicated area in the grounds, with staff who specialise in supporting your age group. During lunchtimes and after lessons, Fryer House is your place to relax, connect with friends and explore interests.
If you decide to board, Fryer House will be your home too, whether you’re here on a flexi, weekly or full‑time basis. This warm, supportive environment makes your first years at Leighton Park an exciting adventure, offering the right balance of independence and care to help you settle in, thrive and build lifelong friendships.
Click on the image to take a look at our virtual tour of Fryer House with Becky, Director of Fryer.
When you join Leighton Park in Year 7, you’ll be stepping into a community of students from many different primary and prep schools around Reading, as well as some students joining us from other countries. To make that transition as smooth as possible, we offer plenty of chances for you to get to know your new school before term begins.
You’ll be invited to our Newcomers’ Day the day before the start of term, where you can meet your fellow Year 7s and start to familiarise yourself with the Park. Then, on the first weekend of term, you’ll enjoy a big party where everyone can get to know each other – a fun and informal way for the 60 new Fryer students to bond with each other and with the Tutor team. These events ensure that by the time lessons begin, you’ll already feel at home and have a network of friends to share your Leighton Park adventure with.
We’re focused on supporting you to succeed as yourself. You’ll get to experience exciting new subjects, like Engineering and Music Tech but also enjoy off-curriculum interdisciplinary projects, like our Enquiry Week and 10X Challenge. You can spend time with friends and learn new skills in one of our 90+ co-curricular activities, like Adventure Club, Stressless Art, Animation Society, Fryer and Chocolate Factory and Rock Climbing – there really is something for everyone and the vast majority are included in the fees.
You’ll get lots of support too, in small classes with specialist teachers. You can call your teachers by their first names – and they’ll be by your side every step of the way. You’ll also have time each day to check in with your dedicated academic tutor.
A sense of belonging gives you the confidence to flourish. We’re here to make sure that happens. Fryer House is an incredible home to our Year 7 & 8s where you can catch up with friends in break time and lunch. Our House system, Sport for all and Music for all programmes give everyone an opportunity to shine, whether on the stage, the sports field or getting creative. It also helps that we have 65 acres of beautiful parkland to relax in, enjoy moments of calm and breath.
House and co-curricular activities are mixed with the other year groups, giving you the chance to make friends who share your interests, within an inclusive and kind community. With students from 47 different countries, you can learn more about the world and enjoy other cultures and global perspectives.
While our GCSE students are in the Top 1% in the country for the academic progress that they make, our real focus is on you loving your learning. Our feature-ready curriculum blends valuable analytical and critical thinking skills with creative habits of mind – giving you the skills to make connections and work together with others to create solutions – all in real-world, interdisciplinary learning. You’ll learn from our subject-specialist teachers but also through our collaboration with industry partners.
We love this approach because it is the best way to ensure that you have the skills you’ll need to succeed in a fast-changing world but it is also a much more fun and interesting way to learn. Our approach helped us win the national ISA Award for Future Readiness 2024-25.
We want you to Live Adventurously, to push yourself, enjoy new experiences and have fun with friends. Our Year 7 & 8 residential trips are the perfect opportunity to explore and gain independence, and with no extra cost for mum and dad.
Travel the world on our international language trips, sports tours and ski trip. Learning should never be boring. We’ll make sure you have the experiences and inspiration to unleash your inner drive.
Our Creativity, Activity & Service (CAS) personal development programme and super-curricular programmes help you explore your greatest passions, learn more about yourself and develop the confidence to achieve your remarkable potential. We lead the UK for student personal development – winning the Independent Schools Association Award for Pupil Personal Development in 2022/23.
If sport is your thing then we’ve got good news. You can play sport every day if you want, with two Games afternoons each week and more than 30 sports to choose from in our co-curricular programme. Football, Hockey and Netball are our key sports, with excellent coaches, great facilities and multiple teams in each year group. Basketball, Judo, Tennis and Swimming are also important sports here, with specialist coaches.
In football, we partner with Chelsea Football Club, with their coaches coming to lead skills training workshops each week. We also partner with the Reading Rockets Basketball Team and Camberley Judo Club.
We’re perhaps best known for our phenomenal Music department but creativity runs deep at Leighton Park. 60% of our students study an instrument with one of our 27 instrumentalist teachers.
In Drama, you can get involved in our incredible productions and take lessons with LAMDA or Trinity (Musical Theatre). Our Loop Dance Company is a wonderful community of dancers and you can study towards NATD qualifications.
The Creative and Performing Arts are supported by incredible facilities, including our sector-leading, Music and Media Centre, two Drama studios and Dance Studio, seven Specialist Art studios and the very cool Design Studio and huge MakeSpace.
Education is a partnership and we’ll expect you to put the effort in. We’ll provide you with incredible learning spaces, specialist teachers and up-to-the-minute learning technology to make sure your hard work is optimised.
Our stunning new School Library will inspire you to new heights. Most subjects have their own academic buildings giving university campus vibes and our 65 acres of beautiful parkland will give you the perfect backdrop.
Our students have access to our Google Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), where they’ll be able to use our online learning resources, collaborate with each other, and complete assignments.
Our forward looking approach to learning technology helped us adapt very quickly during the lockdowns, and to support students who have had to isolate. During our evaluation of distance learning during lockdown in May 2020, 95% of families agreed or strongly agreed that the lesson provision in Google Classroom had been of excellent quality
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