Solihull School

Solihull School is the oldest school in Solihull, founded in 1560 when the revenues of the chantry chapels of St Mary and St Katherine in the parish church of St Alphege were diverted under royal charter to endow a school for boys. The revenues of the chapel of St Alphege were added six years later. The school remained rooted in Church of England tradition through the seventeenth century, when it became a boarding school under the Rev. Richard Mashiter (Headmaster from 1735), and developed steadily through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into one of the principal independent schools of the West Midlands. It is co-educational, educates around 1,500 pupils aged 3-18, and is a member of the HMC.

The school's campus sits at the centre of Solihull, a town now firmly within the Greater Birmingham commuter belt. The Headmaster since 2021 is Charles Fillingham, previously Headmaster of Francis Holland Regent's Park. The chaplaincy is led by Revd. Rachel Hill Brown.

Solihull's alumni list is unusually rich for a regional independent. In sport: the Olympic figure-skating gold medallist John Curry, whose 1976 Innsbruck gold remains one of British figure skating's defining performances; the 1984 Olympic rowing gold medallist Adrian Ellison; the Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters; the former England cricketer Frank Foster; and the European 400m champion Daniel Caines. In broadcasting: Michael Buerk, whose 1984 BBC report from Ethiopia triggered the Live Aid response; the BBC Radio 2 DJ Simon Mayo; the comedian and writer Stewart Lee; and Richard Hammond, the long-serving Top Gear and Grand Tour presenter. In music: Phil Oakey, the lead singer of The Human League. In academia: Lord Butterfield of Stechford, who served as Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge in the 1980s, and Frank H. T. Rhodes, who was President of Cornell University for 18 years.

Solihull operates a substantial bursary programme and has consistently placed in the top tier of West Midlands schools for A-Level performance and university progression.