London Oratory School
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The London Oratory School is a Roman Catholic voluntary aided comprehensive secondary school in Fulham, London educating boys in the age range of 7-16 and boys and girls in the sixth form. There are 1338 pupils including 354 in the sixth form. The current Headmaster is David McFadden BSc MA. Mr McFadden is an old boy of the London Oratory and for a few years also taught biology at the school; he returned to take up the headmastership in January 2007 after the retirement of John McIntosh OBE MA FRSA HonFCP (who was at the school for just over 39 years, 29 as headmaster).
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[edit] History
Founded in 1852 by the London Oratory Fathers, the school was first situated in King William Street in the City of London. In 1856 two parochial schools were opened in Chelsea, West London. In 1863, a boys school was started in Chelsea, at the request of Cardinal Wiseman who wanted to provide a wider education for Catholic children than was available at that time, and in 1870 a school for girls staffed by the Daughters of the Cross. The schools were fee paying until 1912 when they were amalgamated as Central Schools on a site in Stewart's Grove, Chelsea. In 1962 the Daughters of the Cross were withdrawn after almost a century of devoted work and, in 1963, the school became an all boys, four-form entry school, as there were many other schools for girls in the Diocese.
The school moved to its present site in Seagrave Road, Fulham, West London in 1970. It became an all ability school for boys from 11+, admitting 180 boys in the first year. Girls are admitted in the sixth form. In September 1996, a Junior House was opened which admits 20 boys for a specialist musical education with a strong emphasis on Catholic liturgical music. Also opened in 1996, the Arts Centre (renamed as the 'John McIntosh Arts Centre' in December 2006, in honour of the recently retired Headmaster) provides music and art facilities for the pupils. In 1998 the school became a voluntary aided school continuing in the trusteeship of the Fathers of the London Oratory, who own the building and grounds and appoint the majority of the governors, having been a grant maintained school since 1989. Its aim is to assist Catholic parents in fulfilling their obligation to educate their children in accordance with the principles and teachings of the Church; to do this within an environment which will encourage and support the spiritual, physical, moral and intellectual development of the child and help him to grow towards full Christian maturity; and to provide a wide and rich range of educational and cultural experiences which will encourage pupils to discover and develop their potential to its maximum and to strive for high standards of excellence in all activities.
The new headmaster, David McFadden, took over the school on 1st January 2007. He is an old boy of the school and returns after teaching and being headmaster of Christian Brothers College in Fremantle, Western Australia.
[edit] The House System
The senior school is divided into six houses, Campion, Fisher, Howard, More, Owen and Southwell, each with a housemaster, who, together with the form tutors, are responsible for the academic and social well-being of the boys in the house. Pupils in each house have lunch together in the houseroom every day and all houses compete in the various sports challenges, such as the House Rugby Competition. Houses are thought to promote unity and friendly competition in the school, across all years.
Although all sixth formers are expected, as prefects, to take an active part in the running of the houses, their personal academic and social well-being is the responsibility of the Director of the Sixth Form, Mrs Franks.
[edit] The Houses & Their Housemasters
Campion - Dr Virgili
Fisher - Miss Devaney
Howard - Mr Mantio
More - Mr Isaaks (Senior Master)
Owen - Mr Kelly
Southwell - Mr Diver
[edit] Student Life
The school's most recent OFSTED report classed it as outstanding, the highest possible grade. The school offers an outstanding range of extra-curricular activities. On any single day there may be more than 20 activities on offer, before and after school and during the lunch time. Many of these activities are musical where the school has a real strength. Other activities include the Combined Cadet Force, societies and modern languages enrichment. Such activities allow pupils to experience challenge and to work productively together. In addition there is a wide range of sports fixtures, school journeys, visits and cultural activities. Many sporting activities take place at the Barn Elms sport centre in South West London, however extra facilities have been recently added to the school site, including cricket nets and tennis facilities. The Arts Centre provides a venue for exhibitions and performances of a high quality. In the sixth form there is a popular debating society and there is good provision for girls to take part in activities including a successful girls' rugby team. Participation rates in extra-curricular activities are high. In keeping with the ethos of a Catholic school opportunities are provided for pupils to take part in retreats such as those to Aylesford Priory, Fawley Court and Lourdes.
The school uniform is a black blazer grey trousers with an orange and red shield; sixth form boys wear a black jacket with the complete coat of arms, and girls wear a striped blazer. The school admits pupils from a wide range of backgrounds and has a wide catchment area, with pupils coming from as far away as Harrow, Tower Hamlets, Ealing, Sutton, Hounslow and Croydon.
A very high proportion of pupils go on to higher education, with many gaining places at the country's most prestigious universities. Recent years have seen impressive Oxbridge success. In keeping with the school's policy of catering for a broad range of academic ability, assistance is given in applications to all institutions of higher education. The objective throughout the school is to aim to fulfil each pupil's potential, which of course is different for every individual. The school makes strenuous efforts to ensure students with special educational needs have proper care and support, a fact recognised in the most recent OFSTED Inspection Report.
It should be noted that the Modern Languages department at the London Oratory School is particularly strong. In 2005, they were given the award for best A-Level results in Modern Languages of all state schools in England. Advanced Extension Awards are offered to those pupils with a particular gift in their subject.
[edit] Music at the School
The Music Department is highly renowned, and the Junior House, formed in 1996, gives a rigorous education to boys from the age of seven to eleven in all subjects in the context of a thorough musical education. The departament has five full time music teachers, and a large number of visiting instrumental and singing teachers who give singing and instrumental lessons throughout the week. For pupils with an aptitude for music and a desire to study seriously, the school affords extensive opportunities for tuition, study and performing in public. There are five choirs: The Schola, the Junior House Choir, the School Choir, the Chamber Choir and the Girls' Choir. The director of music is Lee Ward, who is also director of music at Hampstead Parish Church.
The School Choir and the Chamber Choir are open to all pupils with choral ability, the Chamber Choir specialising in the more demanding music, particularly the traditional liturgical music of the Catholic Church. The Girls' Choir is drawn from the girls in the sixth form. The Choral Society is open to parents, staff and friends and performs a concert each term in venues in London. Recent works include Verdi's Requiem, Orff's Carmina Burana, Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Bach's Magnificat, Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert and Bach's Mass in B Minor.
In recent years pupils have taken part in the school's productions of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and King Arthur, Britten's Golden Vanity, Noye's Fludde and The Children's Crusade, Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, Richard Rodney Bennett's opera All the King's Men, The Ballad of Solomon Pavey, an Elizabethan ballad opera about the children of the Chapel Royal, Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe, The Mikado, Patience, Trial by Jury and The Pirates of Penzance, The Beggars Opera by John Gay, Mozart's The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutte, Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Bizet's Carmen.
The choirs regularly give concerts of sacred and secular music at the school and also out of school and have performed at Oxford and Cambridge colleges, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal National Theatre and the Purcell Room on the South Bank, as well as tours abroad, and some of the boys sing at the English National Opera, and the Royal Opera House. The school has provided choirs for film scores such as The Lord of the Rings. The chamber choir, schola and girls' choir from the school sang with professional soloists and the Colla Voce singers (an ensemble largely composed of former pupils who have gone on to music scholarships) at a concert in the London Oratory Church, for the retirement as headmaster of John McIntosh OBE, on Saturday 9th December 2006. This was attended by HRH The Princess Michael of Kent and the Prime Minister, Rt Hon. Tony Blair MP.
Over 500 pupils attend more than 700 weekly individual music lessons given by some of London's leading professional musicians in a wide variety of instruments. Where possible instruments are loaned to pupils in the initial stages. Pupils are entered for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music examinations. The school's Symphony Orchestra and various ensembles provide pupils with an excellent introduction to group music making. All orchestral instrumentalists are encouraged to join one or more of the groups such as the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Junior Strings, Concert Band and several chamber groups and a jazz group: The Seagrave Stompers. Choral and orchestral concerts are held each term in the theatre and pupils and teachers give lunch time recitals in the foyer of The John McIntosh Arts Centre and Junior House choir room. The school posseses two types of electronic organ: a three manual Allen organ in the Chapel and a two manual organ in The John McIntosh Arts Centre. There is also a fine two manual Goble harpsichord for pupils learning keyboard instruments and for use in school concerts. The school has recently acquired a concert harp and now has eight pupils learning this instrument.
[edit] The Schola
The London Oratory School Schola was established in 1996 as a means of providing Catholic boys from the age of seven with a rigorous choral education within the maintained system, something hitherto only available in the independent system. The school's close association with the London Oratory places it in a strong, if not unique, position to provide this form of specialist education and to contribute to the development of traditional liturgical music.
The partnership between the London Oratory and the school provides ideal opportunities for the school to train boys within the context of a living tradition of catholic liturgy.
The Oratory is part of a dynamic liturgical and musical tradition which goes back to the sixteenth century when the first Oratory was established in Rome at the time of the Counter-Reformation. Both Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria were closely associated with the Oratory and Philip Neri, its founder, and Victoria became an Oratorian.
In particular, the houses of the Oratory in Europe have been closely associated with the development of sacred polyphony and Gregorian Chant. The Oratory in London has a reputation for maintaining this tradition and for providing some of the finest liturgy and liturgical music in Europe today. The school has a strong musical tradition and for many years has been closely associated with liturgy and music of the Oratory.
The Schola sings at the Saturday evening Mass at the Oratory every week in term time and at other Masses and services during and outside term, and in the School Chapel during the week. In addition to the liturgical commitment, concert work and touring are a regular feature of the choristers' lives. The choir also features on film soundtracks, including the whole of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film). However, since the then Director of the Schola Micheal McCarthey left to pursue a career in America, the number of recordings has deteriated.
Choristers normally join the school at the age of seven and are selected by audition, examination and an exhaustive interview, although places may sometimes be available to boys who join the school later, including during the sixth form. Choristers rehearse at 8 o'clock every morning, for an hour immediately before services, and frequently during the lunch break and after school. Boys are given individual voice training. When their voices change, and the time comes for choristers to step down as trebles and altos, they devote more time to their instrumental music; their interest in singing is kept alive until their voices have developed sufficiently to enable them, where appropriate, to return to The Schola. The Schola is supported by lay clerks, some of whom are members of the Oratory Choir. Choristers are fully involved in other aspects of the musical life of the school.
The Oratory School Schola Foundation has been set up to raise funds to supprt the development of the Schola and its overseas tours, as unlike Cathedral choirs it has no endowments or external source of income.
[edit] Drama
Drama plays an important part in the life of the school. There are several productions each year: a major drama and opera production in conjunction with the Music Department, smaller scale productions by the Drama Club and other groups of pupils and periodic performances by visiting companies. In recent years the school has presented Macbeth, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors and Much Ado about Nothing (all by Shakespeare). Other productions have been Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and The Hypochondriac, Gogol's The Government Inspector, Shaw's The Devil's Disciple and Pygmalion, Beckett's Endgame, Edward Bond's The Sea and Stone as well as Toad of Toad Hall, The Elephant Man, numerous one-act plays including four by Chekhov, Arthur Miller's The Crucible and A View from the Bridge, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy, Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus, Keith Dewhurst's Don Quixote and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, Sheridan's School for Scandal, Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, Brian Friel's Translations, Ben Jonson's Volpone, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, Alice in Wonderland, Shakespeare's The Tempest, and most recently, South Pacific.
Great importance is attached to all theatrical skills so that pupils become closely involved in the design and construction of scenery, the making of costumes, the use of the school's extensive and up-to-date lighting system, in stage management and the techniques of make-up. Several members of staff direct, often assisted by pupils from the sixth form.
[edit] Combined Cadet Force
The School's CCF is sponsored by The Royal Green Jackets and The Royal Air Force. Membership is voluntary and open to pupils aged thirteen and over. Meetings are held three evenings a week after school in the purpose-built Cadet Lodge and cadets have full use of the school's sports facilities. Activities include abseiling, canoeing, shooting, climbing, lightweight camping, flying, gliding, swimming and sport, in addition to subjects taught in the Combined Cadet Force training syllabus. Royal Air Force cadets attend voluntary flying lessons at least twice a month. Most other cadet contingents only get to go flying twice a year. The LOS CCF is highly ranked in the national ratings almost every year.
[edit] Notable former Oratorians
- Wayne Andrews
- Hayley Atwell
- Euan Blair
- Kathryn Blair
- Nicholas Blair
- Simon Callow
- Johnnie Jackson
- Diarmuid O'Neill
