After School Clubs & Activities (Commoners)

We currently offer around 50 after-school activities each week, known as ’Commoners’. Most are run by staff and are free. They form an important aspect of a Pilgrims’ broader education, giving boys and staff alike the opportunity to extend and share interests beyond the classroom. Years 3-8 generally follow the same programme, which creates a great opportunity for boys to socialise and integrate across all the year groups. 

Your son can look forward to enjoying a vast array of opportunities, from Winchester Fives to Ultimate Frisbee, sailing to origami. Boys do swimming, water polo, photography, flying, computer coding, fishing, karate, judo, knitting, chess, Mandarin, role-playing, board games, pasta making, photography, fencing, or rowing.  

If there’s an activity which your son would like to do which isn’t offered, we encourage him to ask if it could be added and we’ll do our best to include it. 

 

Break times 

Break times every morning and afternoon provide an opportunity for all important socialising.

After a snack, inventive play takes over the Yard, the Quad and the Grid, with kickabouts, games of football, basketball, mini-cricket, Beyblades, diabolos, conkers, hide and seek; whatever is the favourite of the day.

The Library is always open with chess, magazines and comfy sofas. If it’s raining, The Priory is buzzing with air hockey, table tennis, snooker, pool and table football. 

School trips 

In addition to the educational day trips enjoyed by every year group throughout the year, there are skiing holidays, sports tours (a cricket tour to Sri Lanka, for example), geography and classics trips, and Easter and summer activity camps too.

In the past we have been on day trips to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the Hawk Conservancy Trust, Portchester Castle and the Jurassic Coast.

Residential trips have been to Pembrokeshire, Normandy, Devon and more locally to the New Forest.

Boys learn a huge amount be it educational or in personal development from being out of their comfort zone and our school trips are designed to offer self-development in many ways. Our most popular trips often involve outdoor activities and just seeing something new.