Yarm School

Yarm School is a relatively modern foundation among English HMC schools. It was founded in 1978 by R. Neville Tate OBE — a Cambridge-educated former housemaster at Saint Peter's School, York — as the senior independent school for the Teesside conurbation. The original school took over historic buildings in the centre of the market town of Yarm, on the south bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire. From its 1978 foundation Yarm has grown to around 1,200 pupils aged 3-18 across an integrated Nursery, Pre-Prep, Preparatory School, Senior School and Sixth Form. It is fully co-educational. The Headmaster is Huw Williams.

Yarm is a member of the HMC. The school is set in the centre of Yarm, with the Senior School and Sixth Form buildings extending along the river bank off Yarm High Street; the cluster of historic Yarm buildings the school has restored — including the Grade II listed Old Town Hall — gives the senior campus an unusually distinctive character. The Preparatory School and Pre-Prep are located on a separate site on the western edge of the town.

Academic provision is broad and the school has consistently placed in the top quintile of North East independent schools by A-Level performance. Music and rowing are particular strengths: the school operates a boathouse on the Tees and has produced Royal Northern Sinfonia musicians and Cambridge / Oxford choral scholars in recent years. Sport otherwise centres on rugby and cricket, with extensive playing fields on the rural edge of the town. Yarm operates a substantial bursary programme via the Yarm School Foundation, supported by Old Yarmurian donations, intended to maintain academic access for Teesside families across income levels.