Kingham Hill School

Kingham Hill School is a co-educational independent day and boarding school for children aged 11-18, located near the village of Kingham in Oxfordshire. It was founded by local Church of England landowner Charles Edward Baring Young in 1886 as a home for deprived boys and was designed by the architect William Howard Seth-Smith.

The School today

Kingham Hill is a fee-paying boarding school. The school consists of nine houses, six of which are boarding and three are houses for day students. Students who board have the option of either staying all term (varies depending on time of year) or they can go to their parents or guardians on Fridays until Sunday when they must return to school. Baring Young also founded Oak Hill Theological College in London. Due to Baring Young's wishes as a founder the whole school attends a chapel every morning and an evensong on Sunday evenings. The school Chapel celebrated its centenary year in 2003.

For the last ten years bar one, students have been going on an annual trip to Romania. They stay just outside a town called Sibiu, which is in the region of Transylvania. They have been going every year since 1994, except in 1999 when they went to Kenya. As well as this the school holds trips to the USA every other year and also during the summer holidays Sixth Form students have the option of going to the Ukraine to help with charity work being done there.

Facilities

The school offers specialist dyslexic teaching in an SPLD department. This comprises five specially trained teachers to help students with learning difficulties such as Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia.

The school has a pool and a Fitness Suite that are open to students and to the public all week. The school trains and employs life guards to monitor the pool and also give swimming lessons. The gym has a manager and personal trainer on site during the week.

The school also has an Astroturf with Tennis and netball courts adjacent for the use of hockey and football teams.

Boarding and day houses

There are currently six houses and two sets of upper sixth flats. The boarding house locations and use have changed over the years and are as follows:

• Durham is a Senior girls house, its colour is royal blue. The building was recently changed from day houses to accommodate boarders because of the growing numbers of girls at the school. They won the House Aggregate Shield in 2013.

• Plymouth is a junior boys house. Their ties are navy blue.
• Greenwich was originally the Sanatorium. It changed to a junior girls house. Its tie colour was lilac/violet. In previous years, however, it has held senior and junior girls. The house was refurbished recently.^[1]
• Severn was a house for the accommodation of single members of staff and is now a senior girls house.
• Norwich is a senior boys house. The colour of its tie is maroon. This house has recently been refurbished.
• Havelock is a boys day house, their tie colour is black with white diagonal stripes
• Latimer is a girls day house. The house colour is lime green.
• Bradford is a senior boys house, and their tie colour is yellow. The house was refurbished recently.^[1]
• Sheffield is a senior boys house. Between 2006-2007, girls from Greenwich House were housed in Sheffield House due to the refurbishment program. The refurbishment of Greenwich is now completed. The boys have now gone back to Sheffield House.^[1]
• Clyde is a junior boys house from Havelock as it is being split in half to hold the vast quantities of boy day pupils. This house hasn't actually been used yet as the building being used for it is still in construction and may be established in late August/September.

Notable former pupils

• Lord Adonis, journalist and Labour politician, Secretary of State for Transport 2009-2010 ^[2]
• Air Vice-Marshal Malcolm Brecht^[3]
• Guy Pratt, Formerly of Bradford House. Bassist for Pink Floyd and for David Gilmour on stage, author of 'My Bass and other Animals'; raconteur.
• Alex Paterson of The Orb
• Martin Glover, known as "Youth". Music producer, bassist and member of Killing Joke.

References

External links

• School Website
• Profile on the Independent Schools Council website
• KHS Webalumnus site
• Kingham Hill School Days site - history archive and recollections by former pupils
• Photos of the school in the early 1980s