School portraits | 8 September 2016

Rugby

When Rugby School first allowed girls into its sixth form in 1976, just ten joined. In 1995 it went fully co-ed and today there are 373 female pupils. The ankle-length skirts that form part of the uniform look old-fashioned, but the school’s co-educational aproach is far more progressive. The transition wasn’t all smooth, though. When the first head girl was appointed, some boys hung protest banners in the Warwickshire school’s chapel and boycotted a service marking the bicentenary of former headmaster Thomas Arnold.

These days the head girl and head boy work seamlessly together and Rugby performs solidly in the league tables, with IGCSEs in most subjects and 29 different A-levels. As you’d expect, the school that invented rugby is strong on sport. There are 13 rugby pitches, three Astroturfs, tennis courts and an indoor pool, and its school gym is the only one in the world that’s a listed building.

Barlby Primary

This school in Ladbroke Grove, west London, is one of those that the Camerons were accused of ‘snubbing’ when they chose to send daughter Nancy to St Mary Abbot’s, two miles from their home. Never mind. Ofsted classes it as ‘outstanding’ despite serving an area that contains ‘significant deprivation’. Almost a third of pupils come from refugee or asylum-seeking families, but it performs well above average academically, as well as in the parental satisfaction ratings: 86 per cent think their children very happy at the school, compared to a 68 per cent national average. Barlby, -together with nearby Oxford Gardens school, has a close association with The Art Room, a charity that offers art as therapy. It was the first school to have its own Art Room -learning space — the Clore Art Room was officially named last year by the Duchess of -Cambridge, joined by artist Grayson Perry.

South Morningside

Lying to the south of Edinburgh city centre, this is one of the city’s largest primary schools, with around 600 pupils spread over three different sites, including an original Victorian school building which was paid for by the Scottish-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.