One environmentwhere children learn and flourish
Facilities
At Highfield School, we are proud to offer a first-class educational experience, and our facilities are central to delivering it. Our facilities and our expansive 175-acre site are among the things families notice first when they visit Highfield, and we know facilities are one of the top deciding factors when families choose a school. When asked which aspects of their initial interaction with the school made a real impression, 97% of our parents said our site and facilities made an excellent or good impression. And once families join us, that impression holds: 99% of parents told us they consider our site and facilities valuable to their child’s overall education.
Our facilities reflect our commitment to cultivating an environment where children thrive socially, emotionally and creatively. Our September 2025 ISI inspection found that we provide a “broad and varied curriculum” supported by specialist teaching spaces, noting that children “learn effectively in the indoor and outdoor areas of the school” reflecting our commitment to outdoor learning and exploration.
Facilities like these don’t happen by accident, and they don’t stay this way without continued investment. As a genuinely independent, family-owned school, we decide our own priorities, and one of them, every single year, is the fabric of the school itself. Inspectors specifically highlighted our well-maintained premises. When schools stop investing in the fabric of their buildings, it’s usually a sign they’re on the slide. We remain absolutely committed to continuing to invest in Highfield, and in your child’s education, for the long term.
Book a visit to explore our facilities and discover Highfield for yourself.
Astro
Our all-weather astro is a full-sized, sand-dressed hockey pitch, built to International Hockey Federation standards and maintained to that standard every year. It was opened in 2020 by Old Highfieldian and U16 England Hockey star Molly Fairbairn. During the hockey season, your child’s training and competitive fixtures take place here, and floodlights allow training and competition to continue well into the darker evenings of the autumn and spring terms meaning your child develops on a genuinely elite surface, whatever the season.
Sports Hall
Originally built in the 1950s and most recently renovated in 2021, our sports hall is a popular and versatile space, home to many indoor PE and games lessons and used regularly for basketball, badminton and gymnastics. The bright sports hall also hosts our after-school club cricket net sessions in the autumn and winter months, giving your child year-round access to sport regardless of the weather outside. Once a year, it transforms entirely, becoming a fully functioning professional theatre for our Year 8 leavers’ spectacular end-of-year show.
Playing Fields
We are blessed with amazing playing fields, hosting 15 natural grass pitches where your child will enjoy games lessons and competitive sports fixtures. Our fantastic team of grounds staff maintain our pitches to a very high standard, providing first-class playing conditions for football, cricket, hockey or rugby alike. These conditions match the quality of our coaching, so your child’s skill development is never held back by the surface beneath their feet.
Golf Course
We are very proud of our picturesque nine-hole golf course. Set in delightful, tree-lined surroundings, the course offers just the right amount of challenge for our young golfers, teaching patience, focus and etiquette alongside technique. Golf is offered as an after-school club, and your child will also have the opportunity to play competitive golf fixtures against other visiting schools. During the holidays, we offer golf lessons as part of our Holiday Activity Clubs for our pupils and the local community.
Tennis and Netball Courts
Tennis is really popular at Highfield. We have four hard-surface tennis courts, which double as netball courts, three of which are floodlit. Tennis lessons are offered before school, during lunch and after school by our expert tennis coaches, giving your child multiple opportunities each week to build on their game, with fixtures against local schools taking place in the summer term. Netball is played internally during PE and games lessons, and forms part of our regular series of competitive matches against other schools.
Swimming Pool
We are very proud of our indoor swimming pool, built in 2005 to replace the school’s old, cold outdoor pool and opened by the Martin family, who collectively gave 42 years of service to Highfield as bursar and treasurer. Renovated in 2021, the pool is 20 metres long and eight metres wide with a maximum depth of 1.9 metres.
Children from Nursery to Year 3 enjoy weekly swimming lessons with our specialist swim coaches, and swimming continues throughout the school years as part of the weekly PE rotation, building water confidence and safety skills that last a lifetime. The pool is also home to our highly-regarded Swim School, where our pupils and children from the wider local community can join us to learn to swim.
The pool building reflects our wider commitment to sustainability. Solar panels on its roof generate all the electricity the building needs, while the pool water is heated solely by our biomass boiler and UV filtered, meaning fewer chemicals are used and healthier water for your child.
Theatre
Our theatre is fully equipped with stage lighting and sound equipment, and is the venue for your child’s annual year-group drama productions, giving every pupil real experience of performing under professional conditions. It can house up to 300 people with its fold-away, tiered seating, and welcomes proud parents who come to watch their children perform. Renovated in 2026, the theatre now features fully blacked-out walls, creating a genuinely professional performance space that lets lighting, sound and staging do the work — the same environment your child would encounter walking into a real theatre. The theatre also hosts our whole-school assemblies, a vital weekly activity that helps strengthen our educational community, and during the holidays becomes a hive of activity for Holiday Activity Clubs such as Musical Theatre.
Science Labs
Opened in 2000, our three well-equipped science labs and science prep room provide an environment for innovation and experiment, as we focus on practical science teaching. From Year 5, children take double lessons in science, undertaking exciting, hands-on experiments under the watchful eye of specialist science teachers, supported by our skilled lab technician, building the confidence and curiosity that comes from doing science, not just reading about it. Away from the lab, our extensive 175-acre grounds, teeming with life, allow children to take their scientific learning outside.
DT Workshop
Home to our own 3D printer and precision laser cutter, as well as an abundance of wood and metalworking equipment, our DT studio is very well equipped and is the place where practical ideas and imagination are encouraged to flow freely. From Year 3, your child will learn to use a variety of design and technology tools in their weekly DT lessons under the expert eye of their subject specialist teacher, developing both hands-on craftsmanship and the technological fluency they’ll need well beyond school.
Dance Drama Studio
Our mirrored dance drama studio, with its high ceilings and ballet barres, is flooded with natural light and provides a perfect practice space for children taking extra-curricular dance and LAMDA lessons. Your child’s weekly drama lesson with their subject specialist teacher takes place here, in an environment that helps build the self-expression, physical confidence and stage presence that carry through into every other area of school life.
Art Studio
Opened in 1995 by actress Penelope Keith, our Art Studio is a haven in which your child can nurture and develop their artistic talent. Equipped with two kilns and its own potter’s wheel, with plenty of space for painting and drawing and flooded with natural light, the studio also features a mezzanine level for individually-tailored tuition with our Head of Art when needed. It provides the perfect environment for your child’s weekly art lesson with their subject specialist teacher from Year 1, giving every child, not just the naturally confident ones, real hands-on experience of how artists actually work. Holiday Activity Clubs are also hosted here in print-making, pottery and mixed-media workshops.
Chapel
Our beautiful Chapel was built in 1910, three years after the school moved to Liphook, and is where we hold Sunday Chapel, concerts and occasional assemblies. It is a space for reflection, tradition and community that connects today’s pupils to well over a century of Highfield history. It comes into its own at Christmas, when each group from Year 3 holds its own carol concert, and we invite former pupils to return for our annual Old Highfieldian and Boarders’ Carol Service. The Chapel was fully refurbished in 2023, with new lighting, rewiring and painting, alongside remedial woodworking and cleaning of the stained-glass windows.
Forest School
Our woodlands are a natural haven in which to learn and explore, carefully managed so native trees flourish and provide a welcome habitat for a variety of flora and fauna, and the most wonderful of outdoor classrooms. There is plenty of evidence that children learn best outside. Children from Nursery through to Year 2 enjoy weekly Forest School lessons, learning bushcraft techniques such as fire-making and cooking over a campfire, as well as shelter and den building, hunting for minibeasts, and producing forest art, building resilience, independence and a genuine connection to the natural world. Older years continue this through Forest School in their enrichment lessons or our bushcraft after-school club, and during the holidays children can join us for our popular bushcraft camps.
Libraries
Reading is of huge importance at Highfield, and we’re lucky to have two charming, well-stocked libraries supporting reading at every level as children progress through the school, alongside a dedicated Librarian who keeps stock relevant and helps children find books they’ll love, because a child who finds the right book at the right age is a child can unlock the endless joys of reading.
Our Pre-Prep Library, housed in the double-height IT and Library wing of the Pre-Prep building, is a calm space stocked with non-fiction, story picture books, chapter books and young poetry for Reception to Year 3, supplemented by loans from the Hampshire School Library Service so stock can adapt easily to new topics throughout the year.
Our Prep Library is a wonderful space, lined with large windows and wood-panelled with the names of every former Prep pupil from 1907 to the present day. It is a popular spot for Old Highfieldians to poke their nose into when they return to the school, and genuinely popular all year round with current pupils too, for its armchairs, sofa and squashy beanbags. It stocks around 6,500 non-fiction, fiction, poetry and periodical titles for Years 4 to 8, with a wide range of dyslexia-friendly books, Hi-Lo reading books and graphic novels to support struggling readers and those for whom English is an additional language, ensuring every child, whatever their starting point, has a genuine path into reading for pleasure. The library is also home to our dedicated Year 8 iPQ research section, giving our independent researchers a carefully curated selection of resources to champion book-based research in an age dominated by digital information. Both libraries subscribe to the Sora app, providing age-appropriate access to eBooks, audiobooks and large-print texts.
Music School
Opened in 2006 by Richard Stilgoe OBE, the well-known British songwriter and lyricist, our Music School is a really popular area of the school, complete with soundproofed practice rooms where children hone their skills on guitar, violin, piano and drums.
2025 brought exciting developments in our music technology. A new Mac suite opened up fresh possibilities for composition. Children have state-of-the-art digital equipment at their fingertips to learn the basic physics of music and shape electronic sounds using virtual synthesisers. They can also develop song-writing techniques and gain experience with a variety of music-making software.
These skills give every child a genuine creative outlet, whether or not they see themselves as a “musician” in the traditional sense.
The Beehive
The Beehive is a safe and welcoming wellbeing hub at the heart of our school, opened in 2023 by Alicia Drummond, founder of Teen Tips, an organisation supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing. Your child can self-refer and come along to relax, reset and regulate their emotions whenever they need to — a friendly, positive space that’s also home to many of our popular wellbeing activities, and a reminder to every child that asking for a moment to reset is a strength, not something to hide.
