Bristol Free School is a high performing, 11-18 co-educational school serving the community of North West Bristol.

What makes Bristol Free School stand out from other schools is our commitment to the young people in our care, a commitment that encourages and inspires every child to fulfil their potential and flourish. We encourage our students to love learning, participate fully in the life of our school and embrace the many opportunities that are on offer.

All schools need to ensure that their young people are provided with a vibrant and stimulating curriculum that meets the needs of an ever-changing world. We are committed to providing our students with the necessary skills to achieve academic and personal growth so that they may truly thrive, both socially and emotionally. Our inclusive ethos ensures this.

We provide our students with a moral compass based on British Values and what it is to be an active and tolerant citizen. It is essential that our students are encouraged to have enquiring minds, ask questions and form their own opinions.

"The pastoral care at Bristol Free School ensures that our students grow into well-rounded, reflective, caring and thoughtful young people ready to take their place in society."

Bristol Free School is a happy and vibrant school that serves its community. Our academic ambitions foster a culture of enquiry and creativity. We value curiosity and thoughtfulness and are ambitious for our students to achieve success, whatever their aspirations.

Our prospectus and website can only convey a small insight into our wonderful school. I would encourage you to visit Bristol Free School and find out more about what makes BFS such a special place to learn and grow.

I look forward to welcoming you personally.

Susan King, Headteacher

BFS has a unique legacy, being created by the local community to serve the families from Westbury-on-Trym and its locality.

BFS is an ambitious school which works to ensure every child makes excellent progress from his or her starting point and experiences a breadth of opportunities which develop the whole person.

We want our young people to leave BFS with confidence and a strong belief that they can make the best of their life chances and be positive citizens with a strong moral compass. Success, to us, is a broad statement about the whole person and is linked to knowing oneself and being equipped to thrive in this fast-moving, ever changing world.

Our Values:

- We believe in promoting a strong sense of community through:

- Running a happy school in which every child is known by name

- Working in partnership with families to secure students’ learning

- Promoting responsibility, tolerance, trust and fairness

- Taking a positive, active role in the community we serve

We believe in promoting ambition through:

- Setting the highest expectations and academic ambition for all students

- Delivering a high quality curriculum and being at the forefront of teaching and learning practice

- Fostering learners’ confidence and independence in their learning

- Ensuring that every child reaches their full potential

We believe in promoting equality of opportunity:

- Encouraging individuality and good character

- Promoting tolerance and celebrating diversity

- Providing a varied range of experiences to enrich the lives of our young people

- Offering a wide range of links with employers, further education colleges and universities

The Russell Education Trust (RET) is a not-for-profit charitable trust. It is sponsored by EL (RET) Community Interest Company, an educational consultancy that worked in partnership with a number of outstanding schools and academies to support the implementation of best practice in schools nationally.

RET works with parents, communities, and diocesan authorities to establish and run schools. RET schools are inclusive comprehensives with the highest possible academic standards, serving their locality and working as part of their local family of schools. Both RET, and the founding groups with whom they work, are firmly resolved that RET schools will all be judged to be good or outstanding by Ofsted and their communities within two years of opening; this has been the case with all five schools inspected.

To find out more about RET, please click here