The Spectator

School portraits: a snapshot of four notable schools

St Edward’s School, Oxford; Bablake School, Coventry; Torriano School, London; and Hurtwood House, Surrey

  • From Spectator Life
St Edward’s School, Oxford

St Edward’s School, Oxford

St Edward’s School has featured in these pages before, because of its North Wall performing arts centre which attracts (in ‘normal’ times) more than 20,000 public visitors a year to its exhibitions and performances.

St Edward’s sets great store by being part of Oxford as a whole. ‘Beyond Teddies’ is the school’s community outreach programme, encompassing a community farm on school grounds where young people with learning disabilities and autism explore basic outdoor skills, marshalling the Oxford Half Marathon and visiting local care homes.

Academically, the co-ed boarding and day school also thinks outside the box, with its pioneering ‘Pathways and Perspectives’ courses. These are continually assessed, rather than by final exams, and aim to develop pupils’ research, communication and self-management skills, as well as allowing them to focus on their own interests, not simply those prescribed by the GCSE curriculum.

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Bablake School, Coventry

When news emerged that two ‘rival schools’ in Coventry — Bablake School (founded in 1344 by the widow of Edward II) and King Henry VIII School (known as KHVIII, and founded in 1545) — were to join forces, there was uproar. A former head of KHVIII went so far as to say that its most famous alumnus, Philip Larkin, would be ‘turning in his grave’.

But the decision to merge the schools seems sensible, when demand for independent schools has shrunk in the area and when the two schools, both run by the Coventry School Foundation charity, have worked closely together for a long time. The Foundation argues that the ‘original merger’ took place in December 1975 in response to the withdrawal of the Direct Grant Scheme.

As of September the new Bablake and King Henry VIII School (BKHS) will consist of a senior school, based on the former Bablake site, and the ‘BKHS’ prep school, on the former King Henry VIII site.

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