Best Music Award

South Hampstead has been selected as the best in the UK for music in the latest edition of The Week’s independent schools guide.

South Hampstead hums with music. Its concert hall, tech suite, recital room and percussion studio give pupils space to explore sound. All students are welcomed to join choirs, orchestras or bands, and every Year 7 gets free lessons on endangered instruments (hello bassoon!). The Chamber Choir was GSA Choir of the Year 2024 and Barnardo’s Traditional runner-up. Musicians hold places in the National Youth Choir, Orchestra and Jazz Orchestra with one reaching the BBC Young Musician 2024 final, while another will solo with the London Mozart Players. Orchestras recently tackled Beethoven’s and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphonies, while 40 scholars play at diploma level. More than 50 concerts, outreach projects and European tours keep music thriving at this London day school.

The Autumn/Winter edition of the The Week’s Independent Schools Guide features a ‘best of the best’ Senior School special.