Woodbridge School


Woodbridge School is an independent school in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, founded in 1577, for the poor of Woodbridge. It was later supported by the Seckford Foundation. Woodbridge School has been co-educational since September 1974.

History

The school was founded in 1577; however, like so many others, it lapsed during the Civil War. In 1662 Robert Marryott, known as ‘the great eater’, hosted a feast for local worthies in Woodbridge which started at the Crown Hotel and finished at the King’s Head in Woodbridge. From this feast came the reincarnation of the school which today enjoys the curious claim of being the only independent school in the country to have been founded in two public houses.
The Free School, Woodbridge, was an expression of the new confidence in England following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Local citizens contributed to the founding of the school in 1662, appointing a schoolmaster on an annual salary of £25 to teach, without charge, ten ‘sons of the meaner sort of the inhabitants of the town’. Additional pupils paid an annual fee of £1.
After a difficult start, including the ravages of the plague in 1666, the School flourished and enjoyed a glorious era in the eighteenth century when the East Anglian gentry enrolled their sons in great numbers. By the mid-nineteenth century, the cramped School building was proving inadequate and in 1861 the school integrated with the Seckford Trust, an almshouse charity, becoming a part beneficiary of an endowment left to the town of Woodbridge in 1587 by Thomas Seckford, Master of the Court of Requests to Queen Elizabeth I.
In 1864 the school moved from the centre of town to its present site with of wooded grounds overlooking Woodbridge on the site of the former Augustine Woodbridge Priory.
In 1974 the school became fully co-educational and today has 725 pupils.

The school

The school is a co-educational day school with a boarding component. It offers GCSE, IGCSE and AS/A Level examinations. The day pupil body is divided into four houses, Annott, Burwell, Seckford and Willard. There is a boarding house known as School House for pupils in Year 9 to 13. The school is next to the local state school Farlingaye High School. The school's music activities include. a symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra and choral society as well as smaller ensembles. Student musicians have been members of regional and national ensembles including the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. There is a professional theatre, the Seckford Theatre.

Sport

The school has playing fields including cricket squares, a heated sports dome with gym facilities, Astro turf for either tennis or hockey, an athletics track, rugby and hockey pitches.
Other sports include sailing, riding, basketball, fencing, badminton, football, golf, netball, rowing, swimming, tennis, shooting and windsurfing.

Friday afternoons

From Year 9 onwards, on a Friday afternoon, students have a choice of joining the Combined Cadet Force,, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme or honing their skills in the many different sports, arts, music, and other activities available at Woodbridge.

Notable Old Woodbridgians