Small classes with top ratings

“I AM known: I am more” highlights The Oratory’s holistic, all-round approach to education.

An Oratory education focuses on the whole pupil, nurturing them to achieve their very best in whatever it is they set out to do, be they academic, sporting, artistic, dramatic or inter-personal.

The Oratory deliberately remains a small school, with small class sizes and outstanding pastoral care. It is rated “excellent” in both categories of “pupils’ academic and other achievements” and “pupils’ personal development” by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (November 2021).

Now in our third academic year of co-education, success has been demonstrated both in terms of numbers, with 30 per cent of the school now girls, and the experience for girls and boys alike.

Drama and music are working closer than ever before with new-found diversity enabling hugely successful productions such as One Man, Two Guvnors and our first ever musical, Matilda which ran to six performances, including several showings to local primary schools.

Co-curricular opportunities have also increased with more than 100 activity sessions now run across the week from cookery and equestrianism through to ballroom dancing and fencing. Our combined cadet force is thriving with growing recruits joining across all divisions, enabling a move to voluntary enrolment from third form.

Sporting successes include the 1st XI girls’ hockey team winning the U18s Berkshire league for the second year running (2022 and 2021) and the U14s girls’ hockey team winning the Berkshire plate last term.

In football, the U15As went through to the quarter-finals of the ISFA U15 Cup and will play Brooke House College in the last eight of the EFSA Cup this month.

The 2022/23 campaign sees Oratory rugby celebrate its centenary year. Our U15s team became regional winners of our section of the Schools Cup in January. All pupils have the opportunity to play in all major sports and to represent the school at county and national level.

Mixed team opportunities are available for cricket, football, real tennis and rowing, with equal chances of being selected as team captain.

In September, The Oratory opened its impressive new sixth form centre. It is a physical articulation of our values and vision for sixth form, providing pupils with the space and opportunity to grow their academic and extra-curricular interests in readiness for their future.

The Oratory has so much to offer. Find out more at our next whole school open morning on Saturday, March 4.