Abbots Bromley School


Abbots Bromley School was a coeducational boarding and day independent school located in the village of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England. It was one of the original Woodard Schools — and the first Woodard School for girls — and was therefore an Anglican foundation that historically reflected the Anglo-Catholic ethos of the Woodard Foundation. It was affiliated to the Girls' Schools Association.
Due to financial problems extending over many years, the school closed in the summer of 2019.

History

The School of S. Anne

With the foundation of the School of S. Anne, Nathaniel Woodard's project to provide education for the middle classes was extended to girls. Woodard had been reluctant to start a school for girls, but some of his closest friends strongly disagreed. Edward Clarke Lowe, in particular, believed that university education should be open to women. These friends eventually prevailed upon Woodard and secured his blessing and his enormous fund-raising skills to found the School of S. Anne in 1874. Even after its opening, Woodard continued to express the view that his foundation might be wasting its efforts in promoting the education of women.
The school was established at Abbots Bromley partly because it was near Denstone College, another Woodard school which had been founded a few years before. Its location in the Anglican diocese of Lichfield also helped to secure for it the goodwill of Bishop Selwyn.
Alice Mary Coleridge, Lowe's sister-in-law and adopted child, played a central role in the evolving vision that led to the foundation of the school. Alice Coleridge, who had been greatly influenced by Anna Sewell and her godmother, Charlotte Yonge, became Lady Warden of S. Anne's in 1878 and instituted a spartan regime and a broadly based curriculum.

The School of S. Mary

Given the missionary ethos of the school's foundation, Alice Coleridge also tried to make some educational provision for girls from families who were unable to afford the fees required by the School of S. Anne. As a result, the School of S. Mary was founded in Abbots Bromley in 1880 to educate more cheaply 'the daughters of clergymen and other professional men of limited means and of the agricultural and commercial classes generally'. The School of S. Mary was built on a site immediately opposite the School of S. Anne.
S. Mary's did not prove to be viable, so the schools were amalgamated in 1921.
S. Mary's was later reopened for the Upper Six Boarders of Abbots Bromley School of Girls, as a Boarding House.
The Upper Sixth used the upper floor of the Building, which was refurnished in summer 2010, this was meant to give them a closer feeling of what their lives are going to be like at university.

Closure

In March 2019, the school announced that it would be closing at the end of the 2018-19 school year. This was due both to falling pupil numbers and longstanding financial problems, requiring the parent Woodard Group to inject £2 million of emergency funding to prevent bankruptcy. Subsequently talks were held with investors in Beijing and Hong Kong to see if the school could be sold as a going concern, but no agreement could be reached. As a result, in September 2019 the Woodard group announced the land would be sold by Savills and no further talks would be held on reopening the school.

Statistics

At the time of its closure the school had around 271 pupils, of whom over eighty five were boarders.
The school was not academically selective but achieved academic results that are generally regarded as outstanding for a non-selective school.
Its academic, social and sporting provision was normal for most independent schools for girls in the UK. However, it did have two specialities in addition to the norm: it had a well-developed equestrian centre, and it incorporated a dance school.
The school occupied, split between two sites on either side of the village High Street.

Ethos

Historically, the school was a boarding school, but for some time before closure the majority of pupils had been day pupils. However, the school had restored its boarding ethos to offer a range of boarding alternatives – full, weekly, flexi and occasional boarding. The School took boys and girls from Reception through to Year 6 and then girls Year 7 till Year 11. The 6th form was co-educational and possessed a new facility for its International College.
Roch House Preparatory School opened in, then in 1991 took on additional staff based upstairs corridor near Reed Hall with an extra classroom for UII girls. A couple of years later Roch expanded again to include girls between three and eleven years of age.

Houses

In the 1990s the houses were
St Mary's side = Roch, KSB, Selwyn.
St Mary's and St Anne's but next to the road = Coleridge
St Anne's = Heywood Rice, Meynell Lowe, Talbot aka Crofts, these houses recently got change to four houses: Saint Anne’s, Saint Mary’s, Saint chads and Saint Greg’s
Abbots Bromley Prep School:
HouseColour
ArgyleGreen
BenetsRed
Duttonsyellow
StrettonBlue

Abbots Bromley Senior School:
HouseColour
St AnneBlue
St ChadBurgundy
St GregorySteel Grey
St MaryRed

Commemoration Day: "Jerusalem Heights"

Perhaps one of the most enduring images of the school — and one of its most public manifestations — is that of its traditional Commemoration Day Procession, which takes place every Summer Term. The pupils process from the school to the Parish Church of St Nicholas, down the centre of the high street, in height order wearing white veils fringed with light blue, carrying beautifully embroidered banners and singing the hymn "Jerusalem my happy home". Members of the school choir wear an additional ankle-length white veil. The service traditionally concludes with the singing of "Forward be our watchword".

Notable former pupils