Rye St Antony School A GSG School
- Rye St Antony School
Pullen's Lane
Oxford
OX3 0BY - Head: Sarah Davis
- T 01865 762802
- F 01865 763611
- E [email protected]
- W www.ryestantony.co.uk
- A mainstream independent school for girls aged from 3 to 19 and for boys aged from 3 to 11.
- Read about the best schools in Oxford and North Oxfordshire and South Oxfordshire
- Boarding: Yes
- Local authority: Oxfordshire
- Pupils: 277 (240 girls; 37 boys); sixth formers: 28
- Religion: Roman Catholic
- Fees: Day £11,250 - £20,250; Boarding £28,305 - £36,000 pa
- Open days: See website
- Review: View The Good Schools Guide Review
- Ofsted report: View the Ofsted report
- ISI report: View the ISI report
What The Good Schools Guide says..
‘The Rye Way’, as the school terms it, creates ‘resilient young people with a positive outlook’. ‘We are building more challenge into what we do day-to-day‘, says head, though nothing cut-throat: teaching nurtures pupils’ self-esteem rather than battering it. In a landscape crowded with big names (or hothouses, according to many Rye parents), we were struck by Rye’s confidence in not being all about grades. New ‘booked-based’ curriculum for key stages one and two. Enquiry-led, topic-driven – all very ‘now’ and encourages joined-up thinking. Lots of sixth formers take Leith’s course in food and wine. Modern, business-like approach to food and nutrition – not a doily in sight and lots of talk of marketing, food science and product development.
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Other features
All-through school (for example 3-18 years). - An all-through school covers junior and senior education. It may start at 3 or 4, or later, and continue through to 16 or 18. Some all-through schools set exams at 11 or 13 that pupils must pass to move on.
What The Good Schools Guide says
Head
Since 2023, Sarah Davis (interim head).
Head of prep (since January 2021), Mrs Alexandra Prockter. Previously deputy head of lower school at Harrow International School, Bangkok.
Entrance
Headington and Rye St Antony are merging both schools to form a single, all-through school for pupils aged from three to 18 years. The merger will take place over a two-year period. When complete, the new combined school will operate a single-sex senior school for girls from year 7 to year 13 on the current Headington senior school site. A prep school, for both boys and girls from nursery to year 6, will operate from the current Rye St Antony site. The new school will be called Headington Rye Oxford.
The transition begins in January 2024 but there will be no significant changes for pupils and staff until September 2024, when pupils and staff join together in their new locations. All current pupils will have a place in the new school.
Exit
Boys leave at 7+, 8+, 11+ to Oxford preps or all-throughs including Abingdon and Magdalen College School. Year 13 destinations vary from year to year: Bristol and Edinburgh most popular. UCAS support bespoke and practical rather than sausage-factory. None to Oxbridge in recent years. Occasional students overseas - most recently to Hong Kong.
Latest results
In 2022, 41 per cent 9-7 at GCSE; 41 per cent A*/A at A level (67 per cent A*-B). In 2019 (the last pre-pandemic results), 39 per cent 9-7 at GCSE: 18 per cent A*/A at A level (38 per cent A*-B).
Teaching and learning
‘The Rye Way’, as the school terms it, creates ‘resilient young people with a positive outlook’. ‘We are building more challenge into what we do day-to-day,’ says head, though nothing cut-throat - teaching nurtures pupils’ self-esteem rather than battering it. In a landscape crowded with big names (or hothouses, according to many Rye parents), we were struck by Rye’s confidence in not being all about grades - ‘it’s not about the stream of 9s and A*s’, says head, though she does want ‘our girls to be going out and winning competitions - seize Oxfordshire first, then the world’. ‘Pupils get brilliant grades, but percentages don’t look as impressive as elsewhere because they take a broader ability range’, one mum wisely points out.
Nursery and reception have French, PE, music, drama all taught by specialists. Weekly Forest School. Rye Bear Nursery up a narrow staircase – train and hot air balloon murals say, ‘little people, come this way’, but it’s not the most child-friendly of approaches. Some discussion of moving nursery downstairs to facilitate indoor-outdoor flow and interaction with reception - this would improve things. Wraparound care from 7.30am until 6pm for nursery to year 6.
New ‘booked-based’ curriculum for KS1 and KS2. Enquiry-led, topic-driven – all very ‘now’ and encourages joined-up thinking. Year 6 read ‘Journey to Jo’burg’, study the ancient kingdom of Benin and discuss issues around refugees in their enquiry about freedoms. Prep classrooms in their own zone (except year 6, located in a different building) though in reality it’s all on a small scale and felt quite integrated to us. ‘We see the little ones around the whole time’, older students told us, and they share music and sports facilities. Boys prepare for 11+ (though most have moved on by year 6, it seems) while the majority of girls will stay - parents we spoke to reported no awkwardness around this.
Onwards to senior school, where broad range of GCSEs includes business studies, graphic communication, food and nutrition, computer science, drama and music. RS compulsory. Sixth form choices equally varied - business BTEC and psychology alongside the usual suspects. As ever in a small school, some classes end up being tiny, but parents and pupils have actively chosen this intimate, safe environment and recognise that it’s the compromise that has to be made. Sixth form retention always an issue in this kind of set-up: a big focus for new head of sixth form, who describes the offering as ‘like entering a tailors: we can design the programme around you’. Pupils can take two creative subjects at A level, ‘if we’ve had that discussion about going on to foundation art’ and if parents are on the same page. Library light and welcoming with lots of space to browse, work and chill (though empty when we visited other than a teacher getting on with some marking).
Lots of sixth formers take Leith’s course in food and wine. Modern, business-like approach to food and nutrition – not a doily in sight and lots of talk of marketing, food science and product development. GCSE foodies were making ‘bomboloni’ (Italian filled doughnuts, to the uninitiated) when we poked our heads in - we were amazed that they weren’t already licking the bowls but were instead getting on with it conscientiously.
Parents feel that teachers are available and easy-going - ‘they’re friendly, with an ‘I’m a normal person’ manner’. A mixture of some very experienced staff and others who are younger. Lots are recent additions.
Learning support and SEN
Learning support up in the eaves (‘there are lots of stairs – are you sure?’, warns our guide). A thoughtful set-up, once you’ve got your breath back: small classrooms for group work and a warm snug for counsellor sessions complete with comfy sofa and throws. Careful consideration goes into applications from girls with SEN - ‘we need to be able to deliver for the individual,' says school, and they will be honest if they feel they cannot support your child’s needs. Inclusivity appreciated by parents, who say that school is ‘respectful’, ‘totally accommodating’ and will give ‘all the time and support that you ask for’.
The arts and extracurricular
A warren of art rooms, with dedicated spaces for years 12 and 13. Sixth formers beavering away on the computers were happy to chat to us but equally keen to get on with the task in hand. Photography studio with dark room. Year 6 pottery lined up ready for the kiln; brightly-coloured still lifes on display. Purpose-built drama studio has lighting rig that pupils can operate themselves; music rooms busy, violins and ukuleles lying about the place. Not the swankiest arts facilities, but all feels welcoming and well-loved. Lots of excitement around upcoming production of Into the Woods, to be performed alongside prep school fairytale mash-ups. Major production annually.
Girls taking the initiative with charity work more than previously, getting their hands a bit dirtier. Plans to get out into the community more – ‘rather than raising the money, let’s go and work there, serve at the food kitchens’, says head – particularly at the Porch Day Centre, a homeless shelter with whom the school has links.
Sport
Not particularly sporty – tricky with small numbers – though, as one grateful mum puts it, ‘they make you be active however much you feel like not being active’. Focus on lifelong fitness rather than team glory. Hockey, netball, tennis, athletics, rounders, badminton all on offer, plus riding, dance (on offer throughout the school, including at GCSE), swimming, rowing. Playing field, full-size Astro, sports hall, heated pool, fitness studio onsite. Victory never taken for granted and success varies between year groups, though they do get some great results: third place in recent U15 hockey tournament (‘you’ve done really well – now, what can we do to get first next year?’, said Miss Croft); parents satisfied that girls recently ‘trounced’ more glamorous rival school ‘on their own posh floodlit court’.
Boarders
Boarders have their own front door to the boarding area to encourage a sense of coming home in the evenings. Well-maintained courtyard garden with a pretty fountain - table and chairs for al fresco living when it’s warm; fairy lights for winter evenings. ‘Boarder of the week’ an effective pat on the back and encourages those who need a boost. Common room is 50 shades of brown, but the pile of well-thumbed novels in the corner, power-hockey table and blackboard on which somebody had written ‘I heart U’ all suggest that the girls have a nice time in there. Small kitchen doesn’t get used much – boarders well catered for in dining room downstairs.
Bustling activities programme - we were disappointed to have missed Thorpe Park, campfire fun, laser quest and ‘Boarders Got Talent’. A different activity every Saturday and Sunday - compulsory to sign up for at least one each weekend. Optional weekday activities run on a timetable - ‘nobody’s signed up for my knitting!’, bemoans housemistress, but lots get involved in arts and crafts, fitness and prayers and reflection. A low-key, unpressured boarding environment which offers a home-from-home feel. A few local girls will do flexi or occasional boarding: ‘the odd night of Malory Towers is really fun’, says a local parent.
Ethos and heritage
A lay Catholic establishment (no monks or nuns to be seen) and fewer than a quarter of pupils are Catholic – so yes, a Catholic school, but at the relaxed end of the spectrum. Display in the library wished us a ‘Happy Hannukah!’ as we arrived; prayer room set aside in boarding house for Muslim girls. Assembly hall set up for advent when we visited - candles, purple cloth, little nativity set but nothing in-yer-face. Established by Oxford teachers (and Catholic converts) Elizabeth Rendall and Ivy King in 1930, who were apparently so inspired by a visit to the Church of St Anthony in Rye, Sussex (‘a little gem of magnificent beauty’, says its own website), that they returned to Oxford and founded a school in its name (almost - history doesn’t relate the dropping of the ‘h’). A family vibe - the great-great-niece of one of the founders recently got in touch to say ‘hi’.
Started life at a small house in Summertown, then a bigger one on Woodstock Road before moving to the current site in 1939. Sits in 12 charming acres of Headington, a stone’s throw from the hospital and the busy high street but you wouldn’t know it sitting in the peaceful wooded gardens. Calming, campus-like feel, all nicely organised and well-kempt. Based around two sensible 19th century red-brickers called The Croft and Langley Lodge, originally occupied by an Oxford don and a publisher respectively, back in the good old days when dons and publishers could afford Oxford property. Everything feels safe, solid, a tad institutional (you know those dropped ceilings with the square tiles?) but in a reassuring way.
A school with a sense of fun and ‘a really positive attitude to being silly,' according to parents. Christmas a big deal: Christmas jumpers, dodgy cracker jokes, pantomime, nativity, you name it… ‘raucous’ tangerine party involves huge Christmas cake, cut by the youngest and oldest pupils, and lots of singing, every year group taking a line from ’12 days of Christmas’ with ‘five gold rings’ reserved for year 13, obviously. Last year they even hired a snow machine – ‘it fused immediately’, laughs Miss Croft.
Pastoral care, inclusivity and discipline
‘Be well, do well’, runs one school mantra. ‘Covid has reinforced the importance of wellbeing and the individual’, says head, ‘parents know we’re good at pastoral care’. We came across lots of pupils who had come from bigger schools where they’d felt lost in the crowd or found the atmosphere too rough-and-tumble. Parents praise ‘brilliant communication’ and the sense of working as a tight team with staff when things get tough - ‘they have been utterly brilliant’, said one. Will build whatever support is needed around the child, involving outside organisations (eg CAMHS) as appropriate. All-through structure lends itself to pastoral care. ‘We get to know the children so well, their interests, what motivates them’, says head of prep. Year 13s listen to prep pupils read; year 12s help out with their art classes. Vertical houses mean that events are mixed: think teenagers in the throes of adolescence cheering on five-year-olds in the sack race.
Long tables in dining hall, big jugs of water and the words of the grace on the wall, said together by younger pupils before they tuck in. Sixth formers have separate lunch space (used by boarders for breakfast and supper) - round tables and fresh flowers give an air of sophistication. Food less sophisticated – ‘not dreadful, but a constant complaint’, says one parent – with limited options, though we heard that girls have a good relationship with eating, reinforced by effective PSHE curriculum.
‘God gives our pupils their talents’, staff say, ‘and our job is to nurture those talents’. A beautiful pair of portraits hanging in the corridor are by ‘a girl who came to us as an athlete and left as an athlete and an artist’, having discovered a gift that she never knew she had. Rye girls getting feistier, more determined. Miss Croft leads the way on this: ‘being ambitious is really important – if somebody says you can’t, go out and do it’. ‘Girls are empowered to thrive in STEM subjects here’, says a teacher; recent sixth form mug-decorating session saw one girl covering hers in complicated-looking formulae.
No staff attend school council - ‘it’s great for the children to have that open voice’ and for head girl team to learn ‘how to negotiate, delegate, manage those difficult conversations’. Increasingly confident, happy to express themselves. What about when this gets targeted at peers? Fallings out over eg Young Enterprise (‘nobody likes my idea!’) build resilience, school says, and anyway there are remarkably few bust-ups. Parents say that dramas do happen, quite regularly (‘it’s natural, right?’), but that girls encouraged to talk to each other and rebuild bridges.
Everyone’s Invited followed up in PSHE; girls felt safe to respond individually. Links with local boys’ schools have dropped (partly Covid, partly other schools going co-ed); school recognises the need to revive them. Lots of pupils questioning sexuality, gender, identity – pupils and parents seem unfazed by it but feel that school errs towards conservatism, unsurprisingly given relationship with the diocese. ‘I get a sense that the ethos of care and concern is genuine, though’, says one parent.
Small cohorts ensure that there’s little room for manoeuvre, behaviour-wise, but we didn’t feel there was much of an appetite for rebellion anyway. Uniform and day-to-day discipline have got tighter in recent years (‘Miss Jones was more relaxed about how long your skirt was or the colour of your hair bobble’ says an old-timer). School told us that ‘alcohol, drugs, vaping are not part of the culture here’, though parents suggested that girls have a healthy social life, lots of house parties, not over-squeaky. Plenty of good clean fun too - sleepovers, shopping, cinema trips etc.
Pupils and parents
Some pupils have jobs outside school to earn a bit of extra pocket money, and we got the impression that many families are dual-income, though there’s some serious cash around too. Majority at the school gate are mums rather than nannies, some dads too. A sociable school and a small community: parents buy into the ethos and come together often, perhaps unusually so in the senior years where this tends to tail off at other schools. ‘We really missed it during lockdown’, said one mum. Tea on the lawn a particular highlight – proper traditional stuff with sandwiches and scones.
Money matters
Can give means-tested bursaries and considering how to develop this offering further. Patsy Sumpter Scholarship is awarded at 16+ for girls who excel in the humanities.
The last word
‘Be ambitious, be curious, be yourself’, reads the school’s strapline. We saw girls and boys being all three in this straightforward, loving little school where academic success is not incompatible with happiness. Comfortable, relaxed teenage girls are not two-a-penny in these parts, but Rye seems to have cracked it: girls can explore the world and work out who they are with a safety blanket in place should they need it. Relatively under the radar until now, but Miss Croft is determined to spread the word. Watch this space.
Overall school performance (for comparison or review only)
Results by exam and subject
Subject results
Entry/Exit
Special Education Needs
The school has a Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator and a team of five learning support teachers, of whom two are teachers of English as an Foreign Language. The department also supports specific learning difficulties, examination skills, and counselling. Learning support tuition is available, at an extra fee, for any pupil, whether for help in a specific area or with wider study skills needs.
Who came from where
School | Year | Places | Scholarships | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
The Manor Preparatory School | 2023 | 2 | 1 | Academic Scholarship |
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