Top Scholars

School House Scholarships & Bursaries 2021/22 Top Scholars: Valeria & Victoria Badham, Mayfield School

Twins Valeria and Victoria Badham, 17, are prefects at Mayfield School in Sussex, a Catholic independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18, with 400 students. The twins are academic powerhouses, each with 12 GCSEs – all at Grade 9, and are now working towards A-levels in physics, chemistry, maths and further maths. They both aim to read natural sciences at Cambridge.

While unsure where the future will take them after university, Valeria and Victoria are interested in engineering as a possible career choice; and they have both been awarded the prestigious national Arkwright Engineering Scholarship which links them to major employers for mentoring and work experience. For Valeria, that means Rolls-Royce is already on her CV, Victoria is receiving similar support from the ERA Foundation – a not-for-profit in the electech manufacturing sector – and BAE Systems.

When not at their studies, the girls play tennis and athletics for the school teams. and piano for pleasure: Chopin for Valeria, Tchaikovsky for Victoria. Both students also speak Russian fluently.

The girls are already well-travelled having lived abroad in countries such as Dubai, Russia and Norway. Both say they will miss Mayfield terribly when it’s time to leave next summer. But what exactly will they miss? ‘Everything!’

Portrait by Hester Marriott

READ MORE FROM SCHOLARSHIPS AND BURSARIES 2021

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