The Abbey School, Reading

Overview

The Abbey School provides education for girls aged 3 to 18 years. The school is based in the centre of Reading, on Kendrick Road. The current Head is Dr Sarah Tullis. In 2006, the school had just over 1,000 students throughout the school, from Junior to Sixth Form.{{Cite web | access-date=4 September 2006 | archive-date=20 September 2005

Founded in 1887, | access-date = 4 September 2006

Notable alumnae include the novelist and social activist Brigid Brophy, the novelist Elizabeth Taylor{{Cite news |access-date=5 September 2006 |archive-date=29 September 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060929205025/http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25339-2215386,00.html |url-status=dead and the historian Lucy Worsley. Around 100 years before the school was founded in 1887, the novelist Jane Austen briefly attended Reading Ladies' Boarding School within the Abbey Gateway,{{Cite web | access-date=4 September 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061015144414/http://www.berksarch.co.uk/fora/corley.html |archive-date = 15 October 2006}} | access-date=4 September 2006}} which is commemorated by, and incorporated into, the Abbey School's crest. In 2017, HRH The Countess of Wessex visited the school as part of their 130th anniversary celebrations.

History

The school was founded in 1887 by Francis Paget - who later became an Oxford bishop - and named Reading High School, replacing the privately owned Blenheim House Ladies' School. It was located at London Road (in the building which became the Gladstone Club). The Church Schools Company, instrumental in founding the school, felt that Reading, with its growing population reaching 60,000, was in need of a new school. The school aimed to provide high quality education with a Christian ethos at an affordable price. When founded, the school had an enrolment of 40 girls, which steadily increased to 120 by 1902.

In 1905, the school moved to its current Kendrick Road site. On 16 March 1905 William Methuen Gordon Ducat, the Archdeacon of Berkshire, laid the foundation stone of the school, which featured the inscription, "In aedificationem corporis Christi". This motto, taken from Ephesians IV:12, can still be seen on the school's crest and promotional t-shirts. The new site was a vast improvement on the old site: there were six classrooms, a hall and space for playing fields.

The school changed its name to The Abbey School in 1913, after parting from the Church Schools' Company. The name was chosen to commemorate a former Reading school dating from 1835, which was based in the Abbey Gateway. A previous school in the Abbey Gateway operating in the 18th-century, named Reading Ladies’ Boarding School, included Jane Austen among its pupils. The Abbey is now a day school, after ceasing to accept boarding pupils in 1946, and was a direct grant (C. of E.) grammar school in the 1950s.

As of 2006, roughly 45% of entrants in the Upper Three (year 7) came from the Junior School, with the remainder of the incoming year group being made up of students from other schools in Berkshire.{{Cite web | access-date=5 September 2006 | archive-date=27 September 2007 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927001724/http://www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/?DIRECT&DNUM=6A07D77 | url-status=dead

Reports

As an independent school, Ofsted do not perform inspections of the school.{{Cite web | access-date=5 September 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061105035614/http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/index.cfm?fuseaction=summary&id=110165 |archive-date = 5 November 2006}}{{Cite web | access-date=5 September 2006}} However, Ofsted have inspected the Early Years Centre.{{Cite web | access-date=5 September 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060427013358/http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/index.cfm?fuseaction=ccreportHTML&id=105887 |archive-date = 27 April 2006}} The Independent Schools Inspectorate performed an inspection on the whole school in 2002.{{Cite web | access-date=5 September 2006}} In 2004, Ofsted inspected the Early Years Centre only, that is, from ages 3 to 5. The Good Schools Guide produced a report on the Abbey in 2005.{{Cite web | access-date=5 September 2006}}

Notable former pupils

• Joyce Baird, trade union leader
• Baroness Brigstocke, High Mistress of St Paul's Girls' School
• Brigid Brophy, novelist, essayist, feminist
• Jenni Falconer, television presenter
• Amy Flaxman, scientist, working on ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford (Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine)
• Kate Humble, television presenter
• Joanna Kennedy, civil engineer
• Miranda Krestovnikoff, presenter of BBC TV 'Coast'
• Krissi Murison, editor of the New Musical Express (NME)
• Claire Taylor, cricketer
• Elizabeth Taylor, author
• Sally Taylor, television presenter (BBC South Today)
• Minette Walters, novelist
• Alexandra Wood, violinist
• Lucy Worsley, historian, author, curator and television presenter

References

References

1. [http://www.theabbey.co.uk The Abbey School for Girls Reading]
2. (2020). "www.education.gov.uk". [[Gov.uk]].
3. "The Abbey School".
4. "ISI Inspection October 2002".
5. [http://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/collections/album/pdfs/austen-32.pdf Reading Museum's local information on Jane Austen's school]
6. The Abbey School. "2005 Site Centenary Celebration and ASROGA Reunion".
7. Scarlett, Jenny. (14 October 2004). "Nursery Inspection Report – The Abbey School". [[Ofsted]].
8. "[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U6206/BAIRD_Joyce_Elizabeth_Leslie Baird, Joyce Elizabeth Leslie]", ''[[Who Was Who]]''
9. "The Abbey School Archive". The Abbey School.
10. (15 January 2021). "Amy Flaxman, 2004". The Abbey School.
11. Hunt-Grubbe, Charlotte. (14 September 2008). "The new women wildlife presenters". The Times.
12. The Abbey School. "Abbey Old Girls".