School Celebrates Sporting Success
13th June 2025
Highfield and Brookham School is celebrating a spell of phenomenal sporting success.
The school’s pupils have excelled on the cricket pitch, in the swimming pool and on the athletics track this year, with the promise of more to come.
The co-educational boarding school on the rural borders of Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex has a healthy reputation for the variety and depth of its sports provision, and recent achievements certainly bear that out.
High jumpers Phoebe Gibbon and Olivia Turner, shot putter Tiger Ellis and 1500m runner Tiggy Walder will head to Alexander Stadium in Birmingham on July 2 to compete in the National Prep Schools’ Athletics Championships after securing regional titles in Eton last week.
They will be joined by Alice Dibben and Clemmie Coller, who both ran personal best times in finishing as runners-up in the girls’ U12 1500m and U14 75m hurdles respectively.
On the cricket pitch, Highfield and Brookham have reached the last four of the IAPS U13 girls’ tournament for the first time. The girls beat Hall Grove, Great Walstead and Farleigh to take their place on finals day at Taunton School next Monday.
Their semi-final opponents are yet to be confirmed, but victory in the semi-finals and final in Somerset next week would see Highfield and Brookham emulate the U13 boys who shared the national title with Millfield 12 months ago after their final was washed out.
The U13 girls also have the chance to make it a quickfire silverware double for Highfield and Brookham after the U11 boys won the Plate competition at the popular Tonbridge Festival earlier this week.
There was silverware in the pool, too, as the team of Aimee Horne, Isaac Steele-Perkins and Ben Schofield struck gold in the para race at the IAPS National Swimming Championships at London Aquatics Centre at the end of June.
Highfield and Brookham had a healthy number of qualifiers competing in London after battling past more than 250 other schools in regional qualifying, with the top 20 children nationally in each age group discipline going for gold at the national finals.
The London swim follows another unbeaten year of inter-school galas for Highfield and Brookham, who haven’t tasted defeat in the pool since 2017.
Suzannah Cryer, Head of Highfield and Brookham, said: “While we have an excellent reputation for producing children who are brilliant all-rounders, encompassing academia, art, sport, music, drama and DT, we are delighted that we also have many children who excel in their chosen disciplines.
“And I couldn’t be more proud of our swimmers, cricketers and athletes who have not only flown the flag for Highfield and Brookham this summer but done so with great aplomb and with great dignity. They are a real credit to the school and to themselves.”