North London Collegiate School is proud to have been named Independent Secondary School of the Year, Independent International Baccalaureate School of the Year and Independent Secondary School of the Year in London by The Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2026. In the accompanying Parent Power league tables, NLCS is ranked the number one girls’ school in the country, and is placed second in London and third nationally across all schools. We know how prestigious this recognition is and are delighted that it reflects not only academic excellence, but the depth and breadth of our whole educational offer.
At NLCS we believe we value intellectual rigour and our longstanding scholarly tradition. Far from seeing these as old-fashioned virtues, we believe teaching our students to communicate, to analyse and to evaluate will serve them very well in the complex 21st century future workplace. Analytical skills are ranked as one of the top future skills by the OECD. We also firmly believe that education should be joyful and practical as well as intellectual. Our students learn to enjoy the hard work of understanding complex ideas, from higher mathematics to ethical questions about AI and global politics, and they are expected to build things, test things and interrogate the tools they use, rather than simply accepting whatever appears at the top of a search. That balance of intellectual tradition and innovation runs through school life, where it is entirely normal for a student to move from a seminar on a demanding text to preparing for a VEX Robotics final or a Surge Start-up Academy pitch in the same week.
Alongside the classroom sits a co-curricular programme designed as an extension of that intellectual life rather than an optional extra. The sporting and competitive life of the school is broad and energetic, with eighteen sports on offer. Students represent NLCS at regional and national level in netball, lacrosse, badminton and skiing, achieving county and national successes, while our chess teams have been back to back Chess Federation Girls National Champions and our VEX Robotics teams are regularly UK National Champions and enter the World Championships. Our chamber ensembles have enjoyed notable success in major competitions, and in drama many of our largest productions have had a distinctly feminist edge, from Made in Dagenham to SIX, for which we were the first ever school to stage the teen version.
Students also immerse themselves in academic societies, Model United Nations and national competitions in disciplines such as maths, physics, poetry, philosophy and classics. Through Raising Voices, our whole school oracy strategy, they learn to find their voice and to listen with the same seriousness. A rich programme of trips, exchanges and visits, closely linked to the syllabus, helps them to understand culture, politics and responsibility beyond their own doorstep, while a visiting speaker programme that brings well over two hundred and fifty guests to the school each year broadens their sense of what their learning is for. There is a great deal of laughter in the middle of all this, and students are encouraged to enjoy school life as wholeheartedly as they excel within it.
The IB Diploma fits naturally within this culture, rewarding habits our students already practise, such as curiosity, independence and breadth, and sitting alongside A levels within the same atmosphere of serious scholarship and discussion-based lessons. In the Sixth Form, Surge gives students a working understanding of how ideas become investable, how capital flows and how to pitch great ideas. It is a good example of the collaborative spirit of aspiration we aim to cultivate.
As a girls’ only school, every captain, robotics lead, editor and head of society is a girl. Leadership is not an exception or a surprise, it is simply part of the landscape of school life that students observe from the moment they arrive, and it feeds an alumnae community rich in women leading in politics, law, medicine, media and the creative industries.
We also want to give particular recognition to our Class of 2025, whose landmark IB and A level results reflect years of steady hard work, wide ranging ambition and a willingness to support one another. Alongside them, our current Year 12 students deserve warm congratulations for the brilliant GCSE results that brought them into the Sixth Form this September and for the ambitious IB and A level courses they are now undertaking. Our top ranking in the Parent Power league tables and these awards sit on the shoulders of their achievements.
We are grateful to our students, staff, parents and ONL community for the energy, care and creativity they bring to the school every day. This recognition from The Sunday Times belongs to all of them.
