Have you heard of Giggleswick? It isn’t a place from a Beatrix Potter book, although its name is charismatic enough to feature in one. It’s a boarding school in Yorkshire for girls and boys between the ages of 2-18. To say it offers a bit more than your average school would be like saying Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson has a bit more muscle than the average Joe. A massive understatement. In fact, from speaking with the school’s headmaster, Sam Hart, the only thing in the curriculum and extracurricular activities seemingly not accessible to students was extreme ironing. But I’m sure if anyone actually wanted to do that, they’d find a way to cater to it. They have pretty much anything a young person could want to try; in the words of Sam (Mr Hart to any students reading), the offering is vast.

‘Outside of the kind of core academic lessons, we have the broader co-curricular that you expect. We've got a wide-ranging sports program that caters for the major sports but also for the minor sports club players. We've got a very good outdoor pursuits program because our location in Yorkshire sits just on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. We have kayaking, mountain biking, rock climbing and an indoor climbing wall. Our location is a perfect playground to develop an outdoor pursuit enthusiast. We've also got this fantastic performing arts theatre, and the senior school productions they put on in there, and the junior school ones are phenomenal. There's a very strong music program as well, and that supports the wider performing arts. And also, we've got a combined Cadet force, which starts in year 10, and it helps develop teamwork and leadership in a different medium.’

See what I mean? Add a class in close-up magic into the mix and I’ll be forging my birth certificate to get into this school, overlooking the fact I’m 36. On top of all these activities, Giggleswick has a programme called CASE, which is all about helping young people enrich themselves with a wide range of skills.

‘It stands for Creative, Active, Service, Enrichment,’ Sam tells me. ‘It runs four afternoons a week, and students sign up for four clubs in their younger years and three clubs in sixth form. CASE offers about 80 different clubs offering service, enrichment, and creative options. You could be doing anything from crochet club through to kayaking, through to cooking. There's even a CASE where they're redeveloping the mountain biking track nearby, so you can develop a wide range of skills. People see it as an enjoyable outlet in their day, but I see it as a mechanism for developing the skills that they'll need later on in life. Problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork, leadership, communication, empathy, all these soft skills come through doing that kind of broad co-curricular. If you're a person who has an ambition and direction, you can use it to shape your future. If you are really keen on, for example, going to study medicine, you can choose the enrichment activities that support the pathway towards medicine.’

The overall essence I get from Giggleswick is that it’s moving away from outdated views on schooling, where all that matters are getting good results in exams. Yes, that is still important at Giggleswick – they have produced students who have gone on to study medicine at Cambridge - but they also prioritise building the students up as confident, knowledgeable, empathetic people. By providing them with as many different options as possible, they’re moving away from old systems that measured all students to the same bar of success, which has the potential to leave those who didn’t get the highest grades or for whom classroom-based learning didn’t come as easily feeling dejected, or as though they’re failing. By providing so many different options, it allows students to find their individual strengths and passions, which Giggleswick staff then home in on and help nurture.

‘We have a range of pupils and a range of abilities in the school, and for us it's about the value we add to each pupil. We put a lot of emphasis on making sure every person who leaves here has the academic qualifications they need to follow their pathway. Because I think everybody wants to do something different, and we've got to support them to do a range of things. One of the things that's reflected that this year and last year, is we've had some really outstanding success with things like degree apprenticeships. I think that's really important, where you're taking the breadth of experience you gain from the sixth form, to be able to channel it into very specific directions post-school.’

Boarding schools have a reputation for being pricey; that’s another area Giggleswick is approaching differently in the hope of making the school as accessible as possible.

‘We took a very different approach to VAT than a lot of schools.’ Sam explains. ‘We want to be an affordable boarding school that offers an outstanding program. We did a good deal of work to work out which levers we could pull to make the savings, to make sure our pupils still had an outstanding, broad, and exciting experience. But we didn't pass the cost on to parents, and we've now been successfully running with that model for two terms. Our parents are brought into it. The program is working extremely well, and I think it was a sensible decision. We've done a lot to make sure we’ve remained as affordable as possible, to encourage parents to come and have a look and see what our offering is.’

A number of Manx students have attended Giggleswick over the years, which Giggleswick tries to make as easy as possible when it comes to the toing and froing from the Isle of Man. They do airport pick-ups and help students figure out the best ways to get back via train to the ferry. A number of young people are currently flying the Manx flag at Giggleswick and, by the sound of it, smashing it.

‘One particular Manx student that came over for sixth form has absolutely thrived, it’s been incredibly impressive, and she was actually chosen to be the Head of School this year. She's got a very good friend in her year group who also came over from the Isle of Man, they've been a real positive addition to the school. And I can think of pupils in years 10 and 8 who also come from the Isle of Man, and their parents pop over reasonably regularly and come and see them in school.’

I imagine it can be quite daunting starting boarding school, especially having to cross the sea to do it. But Sam says Giggleswick goes out of its way to provide a family-like atmosphere. Especially when it comes to the transition from primary to high school.

‘We have a dedicated prep school. It's very kind, caring environment, but they also work very, very specifically as they move through, particularly the latter years of 4, 5, and 6 to make sure pupils have the skills to be able to transition into years 7 and 8.’

Sam believes the key thing about boarding is building relationships, both with fellow students and members of staff, so Giggleswick can truly be a home away from home.

‘The central person in their life would be the Housemaster or Housemistress who looks after their house, and they get to know them really well. They'll be the person students would be able to go and engage with on anything. What I discovered as a housemaster is if you know things, you can sort things out. And therefore, we really encourage the pupils to have the confidence to come and talk to their house staff, because once a problem is known, a problem can be dealt with. We're really focused on building those relationships, and we work really hard on fostering friendships within their peer group, but also the peer groups ahead and behind them. The sixth formers in the House have a real responsibility in the senior houses for the community, for looking after everybody, for being a compassionate voice that the younger pupils can talk to. Our sixth forms are constantly talking to younger pupils, and then they can go back to the house staff about things they're picking up on, or ideas they've got, or ways we might be able to better support somebody. You join a thriving little community within the bigger school community.’

So, not only does the name Giggleswick have a wholesome feel of a Beatrix Potter place, the ethos of the school does too. If you would like to find out more or book to have a look around the school, head on over to https://www.giggleswick.org.uk/