Welcome to the Herald’s first comprehensive guide to the best Catholic independent education in the UK – with over 80 schools. We have tried to give you a feel of each school, while also providing information such as location, ethos, school fees and the inside track on the headmaster or headmistress.
We have also designated our Top Ten senior schools by taking into account a variety of factors including academic performance and pastoral care, as well as to what extent the schools turn out well-rounded Catholics as opposed to just high exam achievers. Whereas in the past Catholic independent schools did not always do well academically compared to others, this is slowly changing. Ten per cent of 2022 leavers from Mayfield School, for example, have won places at Cambridge University this year. Another school notably on the up (though not in the Top Ten) is Our Lady’s Abingdon in Oxfordshire which also gets excellent results, thanks to new headmaster Daniel Gibbons, previously deputy head of Downside, who is emerging as a leading headmaster to watch who delivers both academically and spiritually. Certainly academic excellence is not everything and too much focus on exam success can mean pupils find it difficult to cope. Mental wellbeing must also be a priority.
The numbers of Catholics at our profiled schools is going down. The average is now only between 20 to 30 per cent Catholic. St Mary’s Ascot still has one of the highest percentages of Catholic pupils (at 95 per cent). In second place is Ampleforth (which has not made the Top Ten this year because of ongoing uncertainty around its future) with 70 per cent Catholic pupils. Worth and Stonyhurst come in third with 60 per cent of pupils being Catholic.
Other schools have fewer than 50 per cent, such as Woldingham in Surrey which has a Catholic contingent of only 25 per cent. Due to its strong academic performance, however, and the arrival of new headmaster and Stonyhurst alumnus Dr James Whitehead who is taking the school in a more religious direction, it has made the top ten this year. We have also included the less-well-known St John’s College, Cardiff, which not only provides the choir for Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral, but also regularly beats all the big names in the academic league tables, coming 9th in the UK last year and top in Wales for a number of years now. St George’s Weybridge is another school which does brilliantly academically while taking its Josephite tradition so seriously that it has been known to put non-Catholics off sending their children there.
Prep schools which have impressed us stand out for their independence and old-fashioned values and belief in boarding as a preparation for life. Westminster Cathedral Choir School is especially impressive academically, while we like All Hallows for its bent on the creative arts and on turning out happy, well-adjusted pupils thanks to its psychologist headmaster. The other three – Moor Park, Winterfold House and the Oratory prep school – are all well established bastions of Catholic primary education which have for decades been sending children to the best schools in the country.
The issue also includes four articles from our experts covering a broad range of educational issues from the tragic closure of St Benet’s Hall to the importance of teaching children about the miracle that is the natural world by a teacher from Woldingham. We hope you enjoy it.
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