Ensuring that talented and academically gifted girls from all backgrounds have access to education at Notting Hill & Ealing High School is integral to the school’s vision and ethos. Our students, staff, current and former parents and alumnae represent all backgrounds and reflect the culture and community of our school. We know bursaries change lives and benefit the whole school community. At NHEHS, we have a long history of providing bursary awards and our bursary pupils have contributed hugely to the diversity and endeavour of the school.

However, each year we turn away many talented applicants, currently we have around 6% of our students on bursary awards but our ambition is to do much more.

In 2023/4 we will be celebrating our 150th anniversary, such an important milestone feels like the right time to extend our bursary programme to anyone with the ability and potential, regardless of background of wealth.

Over the summer we will be sharing some stories from our alumnae and their families showing what a difference a bursary can make. Here’s why Natasha is proud to support our bursary fund:

‘My parents are immigrants; my father is Belgian, my mother, Polish; I am first generation English. My mother was determined that I should do well at school. 

I went to St Gregory’s Catholic primary school in Ealing and wanted to go to another local secondary school as that was where my friends were going but my mother wanted me to have the best opportunities so put me down for the NHEHS entrance exam. I got in – I still remember the family excitement of the letter arriving – but there remained a few anxious days before we learnt I had been awarded an assisted place as I definitely couldn’t have gone without it. I was shy – I still am really – but I learnt to manage it and at NHEHS my confidence grew. There was another girl in my class who had an assisted place but I didn’t find out until the end of the first year; it wasn’t something that was talked about. I quickly saw why my mother had wanted me to go to NHEHS. It was cool to be clever, a school of book-y girls just like me! When you did well in a test it was celebrated, everyone wanted to do well; we were encouraged.

I went on from NHEHS to read Psychology at university but early on decided it wasn’t going to be my career. I went along to a law career fair with friends and I realised this was what I wanted to do and did a post-graduate law conversion course.

At 24 years old I got a life-changing job with Clifford Chance, one of the top five international law firms headquartered in the UK; I was thrilled; my mother cried! A NHEHS education had led me to this point and prepared me to thrive in this environment. NHEHS has taught me to speak up for myself, not to be intimidated, to back myself; when in doubt to know that I got there on my own merit.

When I got to NHEHS everyone was given the same opportunities, the same chance; I want to support efforts to ensure that this equal access is offered right from the beginning, from the admissions stage. I am proud to support the NHEHS bursary fund.’

Natasha Delcourt, Class of 2002

If you would like to learn more about our Bursaries & Assistance Fund, read more on the GDST website. If you wish to donate, please click here. Thank you.