Bruern Abbey School A GSG School
- Bruern Abbey School
Chesterton House
Chesterton
Bicester
Oxfordshire
OX26 1UY - Head: Mr J Floyd
- T 01869 242448
- F 01869 243949
- E [email protected]
- W www.bruernabbey.org
- A special independent school for boys aged from 8 to 13 with specific learning difficulties, including dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia
- Read about the best schools in Oxford and North Oxfordshire and South Oxfordshire
- Boarding: Yes
- Local authority: Oxfordshire
- Pupils: 200
- Religion: Christian Inter-denominational
- Fees: Day £31,000 Boarding £36,000 pa
- Open days: Visits by appointment only
- 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..
Maths lessons are enlivened with kinaesthetic learning; a crime scene enactment had the children measuring perimeters with crime scene tape, collecting fingerprints for graphs of incriminating data, as well as dousing a teacher with gore. One mum commented, ‘His dyslexia hasn’t been cured, his handwriting is still pretty awful…
What the school says...
Bruern's raison d'etre is to prepare boys with identified specific learning difficulties for Common Entrance and GCSEs to a range of reputable public schools in England and Scotland. Whilst the curriculum may be delivered in different ways and the use of a laptop is mandatory, Bruern has all the attributes and characteristics of a traditional, preparatory boarding school. ...Read more
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Sports
Shooting
What The Good Schools Guide says
Headmaster
Since 2011, Mr John Floyd MA PGCE (late 30s). Born in London, grew up in the Ivory Coast, Holland and New York. Educated at Cothill House and Radley College, before reading geography at Edinburgh. Graduated from the Teach First programme and spent three years at a London comp, Crown Woods, before joining Westminster Choir School as deputy head.
Settling back in a button-back leather chair, antlers on the office walls, dog bowls and remote control cars in the hearth, he refers to the school as ‘mildly eccentric’. His witty conversation ranges over technical aspects of learning, ‘I describe it as a working memory and processing speed school’ to an exuberant delight in the menu: ‘Look! there go the oysters!’ Dyslexic himself, he comes across as sympathetic and knowledgeable about the...
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Special Education Needs
Bruern Abbey is in so many ways a traditional preparatory school, with its raison d'etre being to prepare boys for Common Entrance to reputable Public Schools. Yet all the boys at Bruern experience some kind of specific learning difficulty, or range of difficulties, to a degree that for confidence to be restored and for academic potential to be fulfilled, they would benefit from small classes, an intensive focus on literacy and numeracy and a genuinely multi-sensory approach to delivering the curriculum, including the use of a personal laptop. Children are taught by trained and experienced 'specialists' in special needs education and by subject teachers who have an on-going, in-service training programme, monitored by the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre, that helps them understand the difficulties encountered by the dyslexic or dyspraxic child. Nov 09.
| Condition | Provision for in school |
|---|---|
| ASD - Autistic Spectrum Disorder | Y |
| Aspergers | Y |
| Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders | Y |
| CReSTeD registered for Dyslexia | Y |
| Dyscalculia | Y |
| Dysgraphia | |
| Dyslexia | Y |
| Dyspraxia | Y |
| English as an additional language (EAL) | |
| Genetic | |
| Has an entry in the Autism Services Directory | |
| Has SEN unit or class | Y |
| HI - Hearing Impairment | |
| Hospital School | |
| Mental health | |
| MLD - Moderate Learning Difficulty | |
| MSI - Multi-Sensory Impairment | |
| Natspec Specialist Colleges | |
| OTH - Other Difficulty/Disability | |
| Other SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty | |
| PD - Physical Disability | |
| PMLD - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty | |
| SEMH - Social, Emotional and Mental Health | |
| SLCN - Speech, Language and Communication | |
| SLD - Severe Learning Difficulty | |
| Special facilities for Visually Impaired | |
| SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty | |
| VI - Visual Impairment |
Who came from where
| School | Year | Places |
|---|---|---|
| Lockers Park School | 2023 | 1 |
| Merlin School | 2023 | 1 |
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