After-School Clubs 

We currently offer around 50 after-school activities each week. Most are run by our 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 offer a microcosm of Pilgrims’ boys.

You will find them involved in all sorts of activities – and frequently the same boys in more than one: Yard cricket; football on The Grid; basketball; competing for whose paper aeroplane glides the longest; air hockey; having their nose in a book; table tennis; an ad hoc chess game lying in the sun; diabolos; pool; card games in the river garden; or the Pilgrims’-invented ‘chennis.

School trips 

Learning beyond the classroom is key and gives inspiration and depth to the boys’ engagement.

School trips are also central to personal development, especially those that are residential. There are numerous day trips enjoyed by every year group throughout the year, from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to the Hawk Conservancy Trust, from Portchester Castle to the Jurassic Coast, from beach school to some of the fantastic local Winchester destinations.

Off-site trips play a special role in helping boys connect their classroom learning to the real world.

Meanwhile, a programme of residential trips gradually builds boys’ time away from home, their range of experiences and their resilience. From outdoor activities and teambuilding, to camping and bushcraft; from Normandy’s culture and history to the history and  ecology of Pembrokeshire – Year groups are brought together, relationships are grown and individual milestones are passed.