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RGS Surrey Hills Historic red-brick manor with tall chimneys and bay windows, set behind a striped green lawn and a circular pond with lilies.
Boy in a green uniform sits at a desk, writing in a notebook in a classroom with a backpack nearby.
RGS Surrey Hills children on campus
Home | About RGS Surrey Hills | Aims & Ethos

Aims & Ethos

Aims and ethos

• We help children enjoy their childhood, secure life-changing qualifications, and develop qualities of character.

• We love learning about the world and ourselves, in and beyond the classroom.

• We seek excellence, preparing children for a happy and successful adult life in our local and global community.

• We nurture and promote confidence, curiosity, creativity, wellbeing, resilience, and good behaviour.

• We help children to be healthy and safe.

• We balance academic excellence with social responsibility.

• Our children are commissioned to make the world better, fairer, safer, more caring, inclusive, and sustainable.

• We celebrate diversity and listen to and value others for who they are and who they want to be, valuing the accomplishments of others as much as our own.

• We work together to support, look out for, and care for each other – we are a family where kindness comes first.

students on bikes
Group of students and teachers in front of a large old building

Our Values

Our Student Body

RGS Surrey Hills has always attracted a wide variety of students, in geographical, linguistic, ethnic and intellectual terms. The focus on Global Citizenship is key to our ethos, and we are proud of our Internationalism. The school’s aim is for about a third of our school to be from the international community, (not mother tongue English) so as to promote peace and understanding between people. Boarding is integral to our ideal of internationalism.

Holistic Education

We seek to give our students a holistic education. Holistic education is a philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to humanitarian values such as compassion and peace. In turn, this is brought about through a wide experience of sport, creative arts, challenge, service, outward bound pursuits, and democratic participation as well as academic learning. Academic success is, therefore, an outcome of a broader character education. RGS Surrey Hills aims to be the first choice school for those who understand that education is about growing the whole child. Whilst academic achievement is important, equal emphasis is put on art, dance, drama, technical work, charity work, student representation, learning through play or culture, boarding, sport, adventurous pursuits, co-curricular activities, and other opportunities.

students stood around a teacher talking them through a map
student doing rock climbing
students painting a bench bright pink

RGS Surrey Hills endeavours to minimise stress and anxiety for young people, and does not encourage unhealthy competition. Learning is through a spirit of collaboration where success is defined as fulfilment through self-discovery and the creation of individual meaning. Everybody is made greater by the success of each other. We seek to reduce the pressure that society places on children through grade performance indicators (exam results etc). We do not define success as personal achievement over or at a cost to others. This does not mean that we do not strive to be the best we can personally be, however, both in terms of academics, or in terms of character.

The mission (vision statement) of RGS Surrey Hills is to:

Create successful lifelong learners and leaders with a global mindset who will always positively impact the world around them through the Round Square IDEALS.