In looking for a school, every parent seeks – in addition to high academic standards and a vibrant program of activities – a place where their child can belong. At Worth, the ideals of the family-run through everything we do: we celebrate the achievement with joy we value listening, and tolerance we see the importance of every person.
Worth is a place where we seek to uncover and ignite children's passions and talents. Situated in 500 acres of beautiful Sussex countryside, and within easy reach of London and Gatwick, Worth is a leading co-educational, Catholic boarding and day school. We invite you to visit us and see how the warmth of the Worth community allows boys and girls to thrive within the classroom, on the sports field, in the creative arts, and within their friendships. You will meet pupils nurtured by both the richness of Benedictine tradition and the best that modern education has to offer.
Although the Rule of St Benedict was written some 1,500 years ago for religious communities, it is a clear and practical guide for the complexities of 21st-century living. Within our Benedictine ethos, we discover how to structure community living which enables the individual to find personal strength, success, and contentment whilst also establishing a genuinely supportive environment.
At Worth, we recognize that everyone in our community is on a personal spiritual journey. By a positive approach to community living, we aim to enable all pupils and staff to develop their gifts and talents so that they are equipped to fulfill their unique purpose in the world.
Worth welcomes its pupils into a Christ-centred community to form them in humility for servant leadership in society. Pupils and staff can derive inspiration from our Six Values:
- Community – we grow as individuals through a life of inter-dependence
- Worship – God is placed at the center of our lives through communal worship
- Humility – we are honest about our strengths and weaknesses
- Stewardship – We honor the goodness of God's creation by our care for the environment
- Service – in serving others we meet Christ and grow in the love of each other
- Silence – silence is required for prayer and reflection
The origins of Worth lie in the foundation in 1606 of a Benedictine community at Douai, France by a group of English and Welsh monks who were in exile because of the severe penal laws in England against Catholics and, by 1617, English Catholics were sending their boys across the Channel to be educated there. In the 1790s, however, French revolutionaries plundered the Abbey and School, but the monks and boys were allowed to escape to England in February 1795. After some years sheltering on the estate of a former pupil at Acton Burnell in Shropshire, the Abbey and School finally settled at Downside in Somerset in 1814.
In the early 1930s, Abbot John Chapman established both another monastic community and a junior school in West Sussex by purchasing a country estate then known as Paddockhurst. It lay in 500 acres of landscaped grounds surrounded by woods and fields and with a view southwards over rolling countryside towards the South Downs. The house was formerly the property of the industrialist Weetman Dickinson Pearson, later Viscount Cowdray, who in turn had purchased the estate from Robert Whitehead. Whitehead had made his fortune as the developer of the first self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s and is linked to Worth's long connections with Austria and Germany. Whitehead's descendants include his granddaughter the Countess Marguerite of Hoyos who married Herbert von Bismarck, the eldest son of the great Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and his granddaughter Agathe Whitehead who was the first wife of Georg von Trapp, and the mother to his children. Captain von Trapp remarried after her death and became famous as the patriarch of the von Trapp Family Singers who were portrayed in the semi-fictional stage play and film 'The Sound of Music.
Worth School thrived, despite being evacuated back to Somerset during the Second World War while Canadian troops were stationed in the house before the D-Day landings in Normandy in June 1944. In 1957 Worth Abbey became independent from Downside and two years later in 1959, the Senior School was founded. By 1965 a Junior House for boys aged 11 to 13 had replaced the Preparatory School. In the 1990s Worth became the first English Benedictine school to take both boarding and day pupils, and the important transition to co-education began in 2008, with the first boarding and day girls accepted into the Sixth Form. Girls were welcomed into the lower years in 2010 and by September 2012 the School was fully co-educational in all years. The School has had a lay head since 2002 with the Abbot being President of the Board of Governors. Selected members of the monastic community also serve as Governors or as House Chaplains.
Community and parental involvement are an integral part of school life here at Worth. The Friends of Worth plays a vital role in creating that community spirit by providing opportunities for parents, students, teachers, and the monastic community to come together and create that special environment that makes Worth so unique. It is not just the children who forge enduring friendships during their time at Worth School this is a benefit enjoyed by their parents too.
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