St Faith's School

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52°11′18″N, 0°7′23″E

St Faith's School
Motto In lamos fiducia
Established 1884
Type Independent preparatory school[1]
Headmaster Mr C. S. S. Drew MA (Oxon.)
Chair of Governors Professor E. A. V. Ebsworth CBE PhD ScD[2]
Location Trumpington Road
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
CB2 8AG
England Flag of England
Ofsted number EY284679,
Students c. 510
Gender co-educational
Ages 4 to 13
Houses Bentley, Chaucer, Latham, Newton
Staff 73 full time, 19 part-time[3]
Website St Faith's Website

St Faith's School is an independent preparatory day school at Trumpington Road, Cambridge, England, for boys and girls aged four to thirteen.[1] The present headmaster is Stephen Drew MA (Oxon.)[3], and the school has some five hundred children.

Contents

[edit] History

The school was founded by a Mr Goodchild in 1884 and in its early years was known as Goody's, after its founder. It features under that name in Gwen Raverat's autobiographical account of her childhood, Period Piece[4].

With The Leys, the school now forms the junior division of the Leys and St Faith's Foundation and shares the motto (In fide fiducia) and coat of arms of The Leys.[5]

Until the 1990s, most classrooms were in converted Victorian houses. Since then, the school has built Ashburton, opened in 1998, a large red brick building. This contains the School Hall, where assemblies and plays take place, two purpose-built, fully equipped science laboratories, and other classrooms. The naming of the school's Ashburton Hall commemorates the evacuation of some of the boarders during the Second World War to the Golden Lion Hotel in Ashburton, on Dartmoor in Devon.

In June 2006, the school opened a new building for Music and Technology, named The Keynes Building in honour of old boys Maynard and Geoffrey Keynes.

[edit] Structure

[edit] The Pre-prep school

The Pre-prep school is for children aged four to seven and is based in Southfield House. It has six classrooms, two for each year group. Children are placed in Foundation, Year 1 or Year 2, according to their age. There are normally eighteen in each of the two classes in each year.

The head of the Pre-Prep school is Mrs L. Smith BEd (Leicester).[3]

[edit] The Lower School

The lower school is in the Newton and School House buildings, both just off of Newton Road. Year 3 is on the first floor of School House, while Year 4 is in the Newton building. Each class has a form room where it remains for the year. There are four classrooms for each year.

[edit] The Middle and Upper Schools

The middle and upper schools use the Firwood, Edenfield, Keynes, Leyspring and Ashburton buildings. The middle school includes Years 5 to 8. Pupils have a set form room which is used for registration and tutorials, but for lessons they move around different classrooms. Children are mostly taught by their class teacher, but there is subject specialist teaching in Spanish and Music. From Years 5 to 8, subject specialist teaching is increasingly deployed and children are grouped by ability in many subjects. From Year 3 to 8 there are normally four classes in each year group.

In September 2006, the school introduced an unpopular and hated by all the children who are normal setting system for pupils in Years 5 to 8. By this, pupils are placed in a 'boffins set, the same for all subjects, one of the 'middle sets' (interchangeable for different classes), or the bottom set, again the same for every subject.

[edit] School site

The School has a large site, compared to other schools for children of ‘prep school’ age in and around Cambridge. Ashburton contains the school Hall, the science laboratories, and other classrooms. The school office is on the ground floor of School House. The Keynes Building contains the music department, an ICT room and the Design and Technology department. The local school pet Ricardo who is often seen roaming the grounds seeking prey is not very friendly and will bite viciously when approached.

The school has a significant area of grass, used mainly for recreation during break times but also for some schools sports. Most formal games are played at Latham Road, a large grass sports field shared with The Leys School and laid out as rugby union, hockey or cricket pitches, depending on the term. The school gym and changing rooms are next to the Newton building.

[edit] House System

On entering the prep school, Year 3 children are placed in one of the four houses and remain in that house group throughout their time at St Faith’s. The houses are named after four roads close to the school. These roads are named after famous British people and therefore indirectly so are the houses. The house groups provide pastoral and academic supervision, gentle competition, charity fund-raising and other activities. Pupils wear ties and polo shirts of their house's colour.

House Named After Colour
Bentley W. O. Bentley Dark Blue
Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer Green
Latham Rev Henry Latham Light Blue
Newton Sir Isaac Newton Yellow

Latham's house colour was traditionally red, however, when the house colour for each student was added onto the tie, it was changed to a light blue colour so it could be seen as the school tie used to be thick red and black diagonal stripes with a thin white line underneath the black. It was decided that the red of Latham wouldn't be clear on the new tie and so the colour was changed to light blue.

[edit] Admission, fees and scholarships

According to an Independent Schools Inspectorate report in 2007, "Pupils come predominantly from professional and business families who have high aspirations for their children."[6]

Fees for 2007-2008 are between £2,770 and £3,490 a term, depending on age.[7]

There is an Open Morning in the autumn term. Most admissions are at the ages of four and seven, but entry is also possible at other ages, when places are available. For the youngest children, places are offered by the head master after a visit by the parents. From Year 3 onwards, admission to the school follows an assessment and interview.[7]

Academic scholarships are available to children from the age of seven.[7]

[edit] Links with other schools

As well as connections with The Leys School, there is a link with Makukhanye Primary School in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa. In 2005, before a First XV rugby tour to South Africa, St Faith's raised the funds to build a new hall for Makukhanye. Other fundraising continues for further projects there.[8]

The school also sponsors the education of an Albanian child, and the children exchange letters.[6]

St Faith's hosts an annual mathematics challenge for thirty-five local maintained and independent schools, and the school hall is used regularly by the Cambridge Music Service.[6]

[edit] Results

In 2006, St Faith's came joint 178th in the Times Online Top 250 Prep Schools [9]. In 2005, the school had been joint 161st in the same table.

[edit] After St Faith's

In recent years, half or more of the Year 8 leavers have gone on to The Leys School, which reserves places for St Faith’s pupils to compete for in Year 6, guaranteeing entry to The Leys in Year 9. The two schools work closely together.

Other schools to which pupils have moved in recent years include Eton College, Felsted School, Framlingham School, The Friends’ School, The King's School, Ely, Oakham School, Oundle School, The Perse School, The Perse School for Girls, Rugby School, Uppingham School, St Mary’s School, Cambridge, and local maintained schools and other schools in the US and continental Europe.[10] In 2005 and 2006, 94 per cent of St Faith's Year 8 leavers gained admission to the school of their first choice.[citation needed] In 2006, twenty awards were achieved to The Kings School, Ely, Felsted, Oakham, The Leys and The Perse.[10]

[edit] Old Fidelians

Former pupils are called Old Fidelians, and there is an Old Fidelian Society which helps the school, plays the school at sports, and holds events, including an annual dinner.

Old Fidelians include John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, the economist, his brother Sir Geoffrey Keynes, surgeon, biographer and bibliographer, and Charlie Darwin, the brother of Gwen Raverat, who wrote about the school in her book Period Piece[4]. They lived at Newnham Grange, now part of Darwin College, Cambridge, and their sister Margaret Darwin married Geoffrey Keynes. So the Darwins and the Keyneses, two important Cambridge families, have close links with St Faith's.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b St Faith's is a member of the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS).
  2. ^ EBSWORTH, Prof. Evelyn Algernon Valentine in Who's Who 2007 online (accessed 22 October 2007)
  3. ^ a b c Staff, Autumn 2007 at stfaiths.com (accessed 22 October 2007)
  4. ^ a b Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood by Gwen Raverat (Faber & Faber, London, 1952) ISBN 1-904555-12-8 (hardback) ISBN 0-571-06742-5 (paperback)
  5. ^ The Leys and St Faith's Foundation is a Charity registered with the Charity Commission, number 311436.
  6. ^ a b c St Faith’s School Inspection Report, April 2007 by Lady Fiona Mynors at isinspect.org.uk (accessed 23 October 2007)
  7. ^ a b c Admissions page at stfaiths.com (accessed 23 October 2007)
  8. ^ Makukhanye page at stfaiths.com (accessed 23 October 2007)
  9. ^ times-archive.co.uk
  10. ^ a b After St Faith's at stfaiths.com (accessed 23 October 2007)
  11. ^ HARTREE, Douglas Rayner in Who Was Who 1897-2006 online (accessed 22 October 2007)
  12. ^ PEARCE-HIGGINS, Rev. Canon John Denis in Who Was Who 1897-2006 online (accessed 22 October 2007)
  13. ^ BROGAN, Prof. (Denis) Hugh (Vercingetorix) in Who's Who 2007 online (accessed 22 October 2007)
  14. ^ Contributors for Ascent at ascentaspirations.ca (accessed 22 October 2007)
  15. ^ TANZER, John Brian Camille (His Honour Judge Tanzer) in Who's Who 2007 online (accessed 22 October 2007)

[edit] External links

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