Reading School
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Reading School is a grammar school in the town of Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom. It is a single-sex boys school, which selects all of its incoming students on the basis of examined ability, usually at age 11, with a few entrants at 13 and 16. It is state-funded, so there are no fees for day pupils and boarders only pay for food and lodgings, not schooling.
It is a Foundation School, and a recent OFSTED report concluded that "examination results place the school in the top five per cent nationally", "Pupils' attitudes to learning are outstanding" and "The school goes to exceptional lengths to broaden and enrich the education of all pupils". In the 2004 school league tables for England (including fee-paying schools), it came eighth for GCSE-level results (average 602.5 points), 106th for A-level results (average 409.3 points) and 170th for value-added between ages 11 and 16 (score of 1037.7 compared to a baseline of 1000).
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History
Reading School was founded as part of Reading Abbey. The date of the Abbey's charter, June 29 1125, is taken as the foundation date, making it the tenth oldest school in England, although there are hints that there may have been a school running in Reading prior to this.
In 1486, the school was refounded as a 'Free Grammar School' ('free' here meaning teaching the free, or liberal, arts, not that no fees were paid) by Henry VII on the urging of the then Abbot, John Thorne. After the dissolution of Reading Abbey in 1539, the school fell under the control of the corporation of Reading, its status being confirmed by Letters Patent issued by Henry VIII in 1541. This was reconfirmed in the Royal Charter granted to the corporation of Reading by Elizabeth I in 1560, which made the corporation liable for the salary of the headmaster and gave them the power of appointing him.
There were interruptions to schooling in 1625, when Parliament, forced out of London by the Great Plague, took over the schoolhouse. The civil war also interrupted, with the school being used as a garrison by royalist forces. The school prospered at the start of the nineteenth century, but by 1866 disagreements between the town and school, which had become increasingly exclusive, and problems with the lease on the school buildings had led to falling numbers and the school closed briefly when (according to legend), the inspectors, on asking to see the school, were told "He's runned away".
The school soon restarted, however, with the Reading School Act (1867) setting out its administration and funding. The foundation stone for new buildings, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, was laid by the Prince of Wales in 1870, and in 1871 the school moved in. In 1915 Kendrick Boys School (founded in 1875 from the legacy of John Kendrick), which had a large endowment but poor facilities, was taken over by Reading, which was poorly funded but had excellent facilities - this caused considerable controversy at the time but was ultimately seen as successful.
The 1944 Education Act saw the abolition of fees (apart from boarding charges), with the cost of education now being met by the local authority. The 1960s saw the rise of comprehensive education, which threatened Reading's status. However, Reading was exempted in 1973 (along with the girls grammar school in Reading, Kendrick) after a petition of over 30,000 local people (a third of the voters of Reading) was handed to the government.
Notable Old Redingensians (Former Students)
- Sir Thomas Whyte (or White) (1492 - 1567) - Founder of St John's College, Oxford and Lord Mayor of London in 1553
- John Blagrave (c.1561-1611) - Mathematician
- William Laud (1573 - 1645) - Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1629 - 1645, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1633 - 1645, beheaded in 1645 during the Civil War
- John Kendrick (1573 - 1624) - Elizabethan/Jacobean merchant and philanthropist
- Daniel Blagrave (1603 - 1668) - Regicide (Signatory of the death warrant of Charles I in 1649). Escaped to exile in Aachen at the Restoration in 1660
- Sir Thomas Stampe (or Stamp) - Lord Mayor of London in 1691
- Sir Constantine Phipps (1656 - 1723) - Lord Chancellor of Ireland
- Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854) - judge and writer
- Captain Hastings Harington (1832 - 1861) - Awarded the Victoria Cross as a lieutenant with the Bengal Artillery for conspicuous gallantry in the relief of Lucknow, 1857. Died at Agra
- Joseph Wells (1855 - 1929) - Warden of Wadham College, Oxford 1913 - 1927, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1923 - 1926
- Lord Roper - Liberal Democrat chief whip in the House of Lords
- Andrew Smith, MP - Former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and former Cabinet Minister
- Damien Green, MP - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
- Mark Field, MP - Shadow Minister for London
- Oliver Heald, MP - Shadow Leader of the House
See also
External links
- Reading School (http://www.readingschool.reading.sch.uk)
- Old Redingensians (http://www.oldredingensians.org.uk)