The Oratory School

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We are proud of our broad and rich curriculum and strong exam results however, an Oratory education is about developing our young people in a much wider sense than exam results alone can demonstrate. There is 'something deeper' in an Oratory education - hard to define but undeniable - by its unique ethos and history as the only school founded by arguably the greatest educational thinker of the Victorian age, Saint John Henry Newman.

An Oratory education gives our young people every opportunity to draw out and find their innate gifts and qualities and instills in them a sense of joy and a genuine love of learning. At The Oratory, everyone will find their place to excel.

As a Catholic school that welcomes pupils of all faiths or none, visitors often comment on the inclusive family atmosphere of our school, and it is this supportive environment and our strong pastoral care that nurtures the confidence, self-expression, and resilience that are vital for success and happiness in the world of today.

By the time they leave the school at the end of Sixth Form, having reached their academic potential, the majority of our pupils gain entry to their first choice of university, including many Russell Group universities. Our pupils leave the school as confident young adults, equipped not only with a well-rounded education, but also with a thirst for further learning, a strong moral compass, and lifelong friends.

Our educational philosophy is underpinned by the values of :

• Integrity
• Curiosity
• Joy
• Confidence
• Endeavor
• Respect
• Kindness.

These core values are shared by every member of the Oratory community, shaping who we are and what we do.

The Oratory has been providing a holistic, all-round education for 160 years, focusing on the whole young person, seeing them as they are, ’wonderfully made’, and seeking to draw out and develop their innate gifts, skills, and talents, which we believe each of them has in abundance, be they academic, sporting, artistic, dramatic or inter-personal. The Oratory will become a coeducational school, welcoming girls alongside boys from September 2020. This decision means that girls and boys will be able to enjoy an Oratory education from the age of 11 through to 18.

The Oratory deliberately remains a small school, with small class sizes, outstanding pastoral care, and a wonderful sense of community. Every young person is known here and we are as far from being an exam factory as can be imagined. However, our results are impressive because of this: while we have a broad academic spread, our value-added results are some of the best in the land. We’re not a small school in terms of facilities, breadth of curriculum, range of opportunities, or sport results. The Oratory has always achieved incredible things for a relatively small school and continues to do so.

We are proud of our beautiful campus in the Oxfordshire countryside and our superb facilities. However, most of all we are proud of our young people – whom we call Oratorians – who are warm, kind, purposeful, yet refreshingly informal.

Saint John Henry Newman founded The Oratory School intending to provide boys with an alternative to the other Catholic establishments of the day. He had been very influential in the conversion to Catholicism of many formerly Anglican, middle-class, professional men. They now wanted him to educate their sons, giving them a liberal, classical education, which would fit them for universities and public life, but in a sound Catholic context. The Oratory School opened on 1st May 1859, with nine boys. The Head Master was to be the Oratorian priest, Fr Nicholas Darnell, and Newman appointed a Dame, Mrs. Frances Wootten, imitating the great public schools.

Over the year the school steadily grew in numbers, in popularity, and prestige. The sons of the old recusant families started to come, too. High-caliber lay staff were employed, schoolrooms built, playing fields rented, and extra-curricular activities thrived: all the trappings of an English public school were present by the late 1860s. In all things, however, the spiritual and religious life of the boys continued to be paramount.

Newman’s friend, Ambrose St John, took the helm, though Newman himself was often involved with the finances, the examinations, the annual Latin play, and the orchestra. He often wrote to and had dealings with, the parents. After St John’s death, Fr John Norris and, in the early 20th Century, Fr Edward Pereira, were both outstanding Heads who made the school what it was: successful Catholic attractive to converts and old families alike. Boys went on to university, to Sandhurst and Woolwich, into Medicine and the Law. Many played a notable part in the Armed Forces, with 84 giving their lives in the Great War. Although Newman died in 1890, the school continued to be very much his school, still attached as it was to the Birmingham Oratory Fathers’ house, and with Fr Pereira, a former pupil of the Cardinals’ day, as Head Master.

In the early 1920s, a new site became necessary and the school was relocated to Caversham, just north of Reading. In this inter-war period, there were several changes of Head Master, a devastating fire, and national economic difficulties which, together with the removal from the historical Birmingham site, caused problems for the school. In 1941the Caversham, the site was sold to the BBC and a new site was purchased in Woodcote, where the school remains to this day. Extensive building programs under Dom Adrian Morey OSB in the 1960s, Adrian Snow in the 1970s and 1980s, and latterly under Clive Dytor, gave the school hugely improved sporting facilities, classrooms, and new boarding houses.

Now with Joe Smith as the Head Master, Newman’s school continues to thrive and is looking forward to welcoming girls alongside boys for the next 160 years.

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