New Hall School

New Hall School has one of the most unusual foundation histories of any English school. It was founded in 1642 in Liège in the then Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) by sisters of the Catholic order Canonesses Regular of the Holy Sepulchre — an order of women religious who had been forced to leave England during the post-Reformation period of Catholic recusancy. The sisters ran a Catholic girls' school in Liège for over 150 years, until the French Revolution forced the community to flee back to England in 1799. They were granted the use of the former Tudor Palace of Beaulieu — once a residence of King Henry VIII — at Boreham near Chelmsford, Essex, and the school has remained on that 200-acre site ever since.

New Hall is the only Catholic independent school in the Brentwood Diocese and one of the largest and oldest in the country. It educates around 1,300 pupils aged 1-19 across an integrated pre-prep, prep, senior school and sixth form, and offers both day and boarding for boys and girls. The school is a member of the Catholic Independent Schools Conference (CISC), the Independent Schools Association (ISA) and its Principal is a member of the HMC. The Principal since 2018 is Katherine Jeffrey, the school's first lay Principal in its long history.

The school operates a Diamond Model — pupils are taught co-educationally from Reception through Year 6 and again in the Sixth Form, but are taught in single-sex classes from Years 7 to 11. Catholic spiritual formation remains central to school life: full daily Mass is offered in the chapel; the senior Religious Education curriculum is built around Catholic Social Teaching; and the school operates the only resident community of Canonesses Regular still active in England.

The pupil body is religiously and internationally diverse, and the school maintains strong sister-school links with Catholic schools across Europe. New Hall's exit profile is strong: regular Oxbridge offers and a substantial share of leavers to Russell Group universities. Bursary provision is offered through both the Canonesses' charitable trust and Catholic Education Service grants for low-income Catholic families.