Downe House School

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This article is about the school. For Charles Darwin's house, see Down House.
Downe House School
Location
Map
Cold Ash
,
Berkshire
,
RG18 9JJ

England
Information
TypeIndependent day and boarding
Religious affiliation(s)Church of England
Established1907
Department for Education URN110123 Tables
HeadmistressMrs Emma McKendrick
GenderGirls
Age11 to 18
Enrollment559
Colour(s)Green, Red    
PublicationCloisters
Websitehttp://www.downehouse.net/
Main entrance
File:Downe House.jpg
Bird's-eye view

Downe House School is an independent girls' day and boarding school in Cold Ash, a village near Newbury, Berkshire, for girls aged 11–18.[1]

The Good Schools Guide described it as an "Archetypal traditional girls’ full boarding school turning out delightful, principled, courteous and able girls who go on to make a significant contribution to the world".[2]

History

Downe House was founded in 1907 by Olive Willis, its first headmistress, as an all-girls' boarding school. Its first home was Down House in the village of Downe, Kent (now part of the London Borough of Bromley), which had been the home of Charles Darwin.[3]

By 1921 Down House was too small for the school, so Willis bought The Cloisters, Cold Ash, Berkshire, to which the school moved in 1922, and where it remains. It now accepts day pupils but is still predominantly a boarding school.

In 2005, the school was one of fifty of the country's leading independent schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, exposed by The Times, which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents.[4] Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.[5]

It won the Tatler Best Public School Award in 2011.[6]

Houses

As most girls are boarders, the house system is incorporated with the boarding programme.

  • Hill (ages 11–12)
  • Hermitage (ages 11–12)
  • Darwin (ages 12–13)
  • Ancren Gate North (ages 13–16)
  • Ancren Gate South (ages 13–16)
  • Aisholt (ages 13–16)
  • Holcombe (ages 13–16)
  • Tedworth (ages 13–16)
  • Willis (ages 16–18)
  • York (ages 16–18)

[7]

Admissions

Downe House educates girls between the ages of eleven and eighteen, taking them from the last years of junior school through to the sixth form. Girls can join the school at the ages of eleven, twelve, or thirteen, on leaving a primary or prep school, or at sixteen after completing GCSEs.

The school is selective, with most entrants needing to pass the Common Entrance Examination.

Curriculum

The core subjects are English, Mathematics and Science as well as Humanities, Classics and Social Sciences subjects and there are options such as Fine Arts, Foreign Languages and Business Studies.[8]

In 2010, the Cambridge Pre-U was introduced as an alternative to the A Levels.[9]

Notable former pupils

See also: Category:People educated at Downe House School

Notes

  1. ^ "Schools Guide 2012 - Downe House". Tatler.
  2. ^ Profile on the Good Schools Guide
  3. ^ Atkins 1976, pp. 106–110.
  4. ^ Independent schools face huge fines over cartel to fix fees - Times Online
  5. ^ "OFT names further trustees as part of the independent schools settlement". Office of Fair Trading. 21 December 2006.
  6. ^ "Cold Ash school named Tatler's school of 2011". Newbury Weekly News. 7 October 2011.
  7. ^ Boarding
  8. ^ Curriculum
  9. ^ Liberated learning, through liberated teaching
  10. ^ "Clare Balding: 'I want to make the world better, for women mainly'". The Guardian. 11 January 2013.
  11. ^ "Success for Cirencester teen Hermione Corfield, who graces the cover of Tatler". This is Gloucestershire.
  12. ^ "Out Of The Shadow". Chicago Tribune. 9 April 1989.
  13. ^ "Miranda Hart: 'I was never in the cool gang'". The Independent. 3 December 2011.
  14. ^ "Not too Cool for School!" (PDF). Cloisters. Issue 1, Summer 2011. p. 5. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ "I never thought I'd be a secret agent at 62! Geraldine James feared her career was over. Now she's made a film with James Bond - and landed a spy role herself". Daily Mail. 18 January 2013.
  16. ^ Party Pieces Princess in News of the World dated 21 November 2010, p. 4
  17. ^ Pukas, Anna (20 November 2010). "Kate Middleton's eligible little sister". Daily Express.

Bibliography

  • Atkins, Hedley (1976). "Downe House School". Down: the Home of the Darwins: the story of a house and the people who lived there (2nd ed.). [Chichester]: Phillimore. pp. 106–110. ISBN 0-85033-231-1.
  • Bowen, Elizabeth (1950). "The Mulberry Tree". Collected Impressions. London: Longmans Green and Co. pp. 185–194. (Describes life at Downe House during World War I)
  • Horsler, Val; Kingsland, Jenny (2006). Downe House: a Mystery and a Miracle. London: Third Millennium Publishing. ISBN 978-1-903942-50-5.
  • Ridler, Anne (1967). Olive Willis and Downe House: an adventure in education. London: John Murray. At openlibrary.org

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Downe_House_School&oldid=584885177"