This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Coordinates: 50°56′49″N 2°31′05″W / 50.947°N 2.518°W / 50.947; -2.518

Sherborne School
Address
Abbey Road Sherborne , Dorset , DT9 3AP United Kingdom
Information
Type	Public school Independent day and boarding
Motto	Dieu et mon droit (God and my right)[3]
Religious affiliation(s)	Church of England
Established	1550 (8th century)
Founder	St Aldhelm
Department for Education URN	113918 Tables
Chairman of the Governors	Roger Fidgen[1]
Headmaster	Dr Dominic Luckett[2]
Chaplain	Rev Dr David Campbell
Staff	165
Gender	Boys
Age	13 to 18
Enrolment	543 pupils as of January 2018[update]
Houses	9
Colour(s)	Royal Blue & Gold
Publication	The Shirburnian
Former pupils	Old Shirburnians
Website	http://www.sherborne.org

Sherborne School is a British independent boys' school, located in the town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset, England. It is one of the original member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. It has close partnerships with the nearby girls' school Sherborne Girls, with whom it shares many academic, co-curricular and social activities.

History[edit]

The school

Illustrated London News, 6 July 1861

The school's origins date back to the early 8th century, when a tradition of education in Sherborne was begun by St Aldhelm at the founding of the Saxon Cathedral (now Sherborne Abbey) and associated Cathedral School. According to legend, Alfred the Great was one of the school's early pupils. The school was then linked with Sherborne Abbey, formerly a Benedictine house. The earliest known Master was Thomas Copeland in 1437. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Edward VI re-founded the school in 1550 as King Edward's School, a free grammar school for local boys. The present-day school stands on land which once belonged to the abbey's monastery. The library, chapel and headmaster's rooms, which adjoin the Abbey Church, are modifications of its original monastic buildings.

In the Beckett Room, below the library, there survives Anglo-Saxon masonry, a reminder that the school occupies part of the remains of the Saxon Cathedral (AD 705, remodelled as a Benedictine abbey in 998). The headmaster and the senior staff now have their offices, appropriately enough, in the Abbot's house, rather grandly refashioned, like the Abbey itself, in the 15th century; the library was, perhaps, the Abbot's "Guest Hall" (13th–15th century); the chapel occupies another monastic refectory (12th–15th century, but much rebuilt and extended in the 19th century). Go just beyond the headmaster’s block and face the Abbey and you can see quite clearly on the walls to your right the outlines of the monastic cloister with its curious first floor Abbot’s Chapel; the conduit, where the monks washed, was removed by the Victorians and rebuilt outside Bow House.

The school's 2016 and 2017 scores for A level place it in the top 1% of all schools in England.^[when?]

Music is a Sherborne tradition. Many boys achieve grade 8 distinctions for voice and a range of instruments. Several boys each year also pass their ATCL diplomas, many with distinction. Some then go on to take their LTCL diplomas.^[4] In 2015 The Week magazine named Sherborne as the best school for music.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, Sherborne School was one of 50 of the country's leading independent schools that were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents.^[5] Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000. All schools involved in the scandal agreed to make ex-gratia payments, totalling £3 million, into a trust. The trust was designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.^[6] However, Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said that independent schools had always been exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business, were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other, and were unaware of the change to the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed."^[7]

Sherborne International[edit]

Sherborne International is an independent co-educational boarding school, owned and governed by Sherborne School. It was established in 1977 for those from non-British educational backgrounds who wish to improve their English language skills before moving on to study at boarding schools elsewhere in the United Kingdom. It is located in Sherborne, occupying its own campus, Newell Grange, but sharing some facilities with Sherborne School.^[8]

Qatar branch

Two sister schools (one prep and one senior) have been established in Doha, Qatar. The prep school was established in 2009 and the senior school in 2012.^[9]

Houses[edit]

As Sherborne is predominantly a boarding school, the house system is based on the boarding programme. Each house has around 70 boys with a mix of both boarders and day pupils. Day boys are fully integrated into after-school and weekend programmes.^[10] There are nine houses:

Extant boarding houses[edit]

Westcott House was opened in 1920, but closed to pupils in 1999 and was used as part of the International School. It will be reopened to pupils in September 2021.

Defunct boarding houses[edit]

Chapel[edit]

The school chapel was originally the Monastic Hall (12th–15th century) for the abbey and was acquired by the school in 1851 from Lord Digby.^{[citation needed]} It was restored and extended, and in 1855, consecrated as a chapel, dedicated to St John the Evangelist. It was extended: eastwards in 1853; Westwards in 1865; Northwards, to create the North aisle, in 1878 and; Westwards and Northwards in 1922 to extend the nave, and create the antechapel, with the names engraved of those who died in the Great War.

There are two organs in the chapel: one is a pipe organ;^[11] the other is a virtual organ^[12] with the specification of the Hereford Cathedral Organ. Sherborne School is the first independent school in England to have a virtual organ.^{[citation needed]}

Music[edit]

A "new" music school was purpose-built in 2010 and won the ORMS architecture design award in 2012.^{[citation needed]}

There are two choirs, two barbershop groups, symphony orchestra, sinfonia, chamber orchestra, concert and radio orchestras (Trinity term only), wind band, wind quintet, string, wind, brass and jazz ensembles and various other smaller instrumental ensembles.^{[citation needed]} There is also an amphitheatre for outdoor performances.

There are two Abbey services a week which are accompanied by the chapel choir, the chamber choir sings an introit on Sundays. Once a term the chamber choir sings for a service in an external venue. These include: Salisbury Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral and various Oxford College chapels, amongst numerous others, as well as these, international tours are available for various ensembles.^{[citation needed]}

The school song is Carmen Saeculare.^[13] Only the first and last verses are sung nowadays, with which the whole school (including staff) join in.^{[citation needed]}

Annually, there is a rock-concert event aptly named "Concert in the Courts" with boys and girls from the local senior schools performing and coming to watch. In 2016, it was featured in The Telegraph.^[14]

Library[edit]

The library was, like the chapel, part of the Monastic Hall (13th-15th century). Later, it was a silk mill and later still, perhaps, a brewery. It was acquired by the school in 1851 and restored in 1853. The Upper Library was used as the main school assembly room up until 1879 (when the Big School Room was built) and has been used as the main school library since. The Lower Library/ current Westcott Room was used for a time as three classrooms, and later, a headmaster's office, but since 1926 it has been used as the Lower Library.

Sport[edit]

Grounds[edit]

Sherborne School cricket ground

The school's cricket ground – the Upper – is usually used by the 1st XI cricket team. The ground was first used in 1870, when Sherborne School played Clifton College.^[15] The ground is also one of the venues used by Dorset for their home fixtures. Dorset played their first match on the ground in the 1902 Minor Counties Championship against Devon. From 1902 to 1997, the ground played host to 69 Minor Counties Championship matches, with the final Championship match involving Dorset coming in 1997 when they played Herefordshire.^[16] In addition, the ground has hosted 13 MCCA Knockout Trophy matches, the last of which was in 2008, when Dorset played Buckinghamshire.^[17]

The ground has also played host to a single List A match, when Dorset played Bedfordshire in the 1968 Gillette Cup.^[18]

On 30 May 2010, Dorset played Somerset, which included international players such as Craig Kieswetter in a friendly Twenty20 fixture on the ground. On 27 May 2011, the Upper hosted Dorset against Gloucestershire.^[19]

In total there are around 60 acres of sports grounds on the outskirts of the town.

Rugby[edit]

Rugby has been played at Sherborne since 1846; it was the third school to take up the sport, after Rugby itself and Cheltenham.^{[20][better source needed]} The school competes in an invitational tournament, Veterrimi, involving the oldest rugby-playing schools.^[21] The school has played over 100 matches against local rivals Downside, and the Pilgrims (Old Shirburnians) played their 100th match against Radley in 2015.^[22] Robert Hands, a former sports journalist for The Times, has written a history of rugby at Sherborne School.^[23]

Films[edit]

The school has been used as a set in several films. These are: The Guinea Pig (1948); Goodbye Mr Chips (1969); A Murder of Quality (1991); The Browning Version (1994); The Imitation Game (2014); Wolf Hall (2015) and; Far From the Madding Crowd (2015).

Headmasters[edit]

Ushers[edit]

The Usher, or Lower Master, was an official appointed by the Governors, independent of the Headmaster; he was required to have attained at least a B.A. from Oxford or Cambridge, and he may have been in Holy Orders. From the fragment of an account Roll, still extant, dating from 1549, there is evidence that there was an Usher before the Refounding in 1550, but unfortunately the name of the then Usher is not given.^[27] The office was abolished in 1871,^[28] although the title was later briefly revived to denote the Senior Deputy Head.^[29]

[O.S.] = Old Shirburnians

Old Shirburnians[edit]

For further details of notable people from Sherborne, see Old Shirburnians.

See also[edit]

• Sherborne School For Girls


• List of Victoria Crosses by School


• Sherborne Bone

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Sherborne School


• Old Shirburnian Society website


• 
  Profile on the Independent Schools Council website


• 
  Sherborne School Cricket Ground at CricketArchive


• Sherborne School Archives


• Qatar branch website