Awards and Recognition in 2025
End of year round-ups can be misleading. They often suggest a sudden moment of success, when most progress in schools is slow, cumulative and built on attention to detail.
In 2025, Bancroft’s saw that steady work recognised more widely in several ways: national award wins, finalist status in the Independent Schools of the Year Awards, a “Very Good” rating in The Telegraph’s Best Value Private Schools list, and a rise in the Sunday Times Parent Power league tables.
None of this is what makes a school. But taken together, it offers a useful glimpse of what the Bancroft’s experience looks like in practice: high expectations, strong pastoral care, and a culture that supports pupils properly while encouraging them to aim high.
Award wins in 2025
Pastoral Care Champion 2025 (School House Magazine)
Bancroft’s was named Pastoral Care Champion 2025, highlighting the strength of the school’s pastoral provision and the consistency of the support wrapped around daily school life.
Pastoral care is not something you put on a prospectus and hope for the best. It is lived out through careful, ongoing work that helps pupils feel known, supported and able to thrive, whatever the week brings.
Talk Education Awards 2025: Alice Rose Award for Innovation in Education
Bancroft’s also won the Alice Rose Award for Innovation in Education at the Talk Education Awards 2025.
The best innovation in schools is rarely flashy. It shows up in teaching that evolves with the world, in pupils being supported to think independently, and in learning environments that make ambition feel possible.
Finalist status
Independent Schools of the Year Awards 2025
Bancroft’s was named a finalist in the Independent Schools of the Year Awards 2025, including in the London Independent School of the Year category.
Finalist status matters because it reflects a broader picture of school life. Not just outcomes, but what it actually feels like to be a pupil here.
Rated by The Telegraph
Bancroft’s was also featured by The Telegraph in its Best Value Private Schools list for 2025, receiving a “Very Good” rating, the highest awarded in the rankings.
It is not an award win, but it is a strong external endorsement of the quality of education and the breadth of opportunity offered here.
Up in the Sunday Times Parent Power league tables
Alongside these acknowledgements, Bancroft’s rose a place in the Sunday Times Parent Power league tables, climbing to 37th nationally.
League tables are not the full story, but improvement within them rarely comes without sustained effort from pupils and staff.
Why does it matter?
Because awards and rankings are not the purpose of school, but they can be a useful signal of what is happening behind the front gates. No shortlist, league table or prize can ever tell the whole story, yet they have given our community something tangible to celebrate.
The work continues into 2026, as it always does, with the same values and the same sense of purpose.
