Rye St Anthony, Oxford closing???

[ohtobe4]

Heard this on the grapevine today. Anyone know anything more?? Is it true??

I guess it will come down to how many Rye girls will or will not cope in a larger environment. Time will tell I suppose.

I don't think any parent would consider it 'lucky' to find themselves paying thousands of pounds for the school next door that they didn't choose!

Headington doesn't see itself as a hothouse. OHS is the hothouse and Headington is the 'all rounder' with lots of opportunities for the creative, musical or sporty child - it's not all about exam results.

That's really up to you to decide, though. It's quite a packed programme and the school attracts some high fliers (the new art centre has pictures of Emma Watson all along the walls). I'm quite interested to see what the Rye parents make of it all.

Headington isn't really seen as a hothouse and buying Rye might make that even more true. There's OHS and SHSK for the truly academic high fliers.

I do know some girls (past two years of 11+ and 13+) who were offered a place at SHSK but were not offered a place at Headington. The feedback for one of the girls at 13+ was that she wasn't academic enough for Headington.

Must have been a bad day at the Headington exam. SHSK is much more academic than Headington. I know I’ve had different daughters at both.

It’s going to be called Headington Rye. I hope there aren’t redundancies for staff.

They said in the press statement there will be no job losses.

Does Headington manage out underperformers during senior school?

I suppose if you don't get any GCSEs that are 7 or above then you could be asked to leave because you need at least a 7 to do that subject at A-level (at Headington)

I can see why this is happening but it will be quite the change I'm sure. My first concern is rather trivial in the overall scheme of things - what is going to happen to the Oxford Music Festival? For many years it was predominantly hosted by Headington over two weekends, then a few years ago they decided they didn't like opening up the school site that way - so the festival moved to Rye ...

My daughter is from Headington, and she as well does not support this merger. She says that many of her peers were crying and were very upset because they were terrified of what would happen to their school and the prep school. Many ex Headington girls have gone to Rye, some of which have bullied my daughter and her friends. I know not all of them are bad, but there are still the select few.

Interesting. I can't imagine a Headington girl crying and being bullied by a Rye girl. We had the opposite experience in that my daughter was ganged up by a bunch of girls at Headington and consequently had to move schools. I know of at least one other ex-Headington parent (who has told me of other cases) who has had to pull out her daughter due to bullying at Headington school. I have also heard of two Headington girls being expelled because they threatened to "jump" Rye girls when they join.

I hope you told them to snap out of it. Crying and terrified because of merging with Rye - I don’t think so

I think the level of bullying is low especially if you were to compare this to state schools. Incidents are taken seriously and fully investigated. I’m not aware of students still being unhappy re the merger. I think it was the initial shock and some immaturity in September.

My DD1 is in Y10 at Headington and she said most of her year were not fussed about it. My DD2 is in Y8 and she said many in her year were very upset and took the news of the merger badly. She said there was a lot of crying and confusion. I think a lot of the girls who had come through the prep school were worried about what would happen to their old school and to their headteacher Mrs. Crouch who many of them are so fond of. I think things settled down once they realised that everything was going to be "ok" and Mrs. Crouch was staying.

What am I reading? Is there a problem with physical violence at Headington? This seems fairly extraordinary for a school like Headington.

I don’t know about any physical violence at Headington, not that I’ve ever heard of at least. My daughter is also in year 8 at Headington and told me that many people thought that the prep school was going to be demolished and/or sold to Brookes. My daughter said that her bully who moved to Rye had also bullied many other people in her year (not normally physically). The worst case I heard of was when my daughter was in year 6, her bully wouldn’t let anyone talk to one girl. Eventually everyone stopped trying to talk to the girl and she became very lonely. Even after doing things like this to many other people, the bully claimed that she moved to Rye because she was being bullied. I think the 2 Headington girls that were expelled (if I’m talking about the right ones) were expelled for taking drugs in the toilets in 2022. I think they then moved to Rye.

@Rainia At least it sounds like Headington managed her out to Rye. Rye and OLA have long taken on the managed out kids from other schools. It seems some of them just need a less pressured environment. We know one who was having outbursts at St. Hugh's and ended up at OLA where she's now thriving and like a different child.

Not physical violence but verbal confrontation by a large group of girls that left my daughter traumatised. It appears that the major issue is from girls who have started off in the prep and feel like they can intimidate "newbies" who have newly joined the senior school. It also appears that this was not an isolated incident as I have since been in contact with another parent whose daughter also experienced intimidation by girls at Headington. The lack of willingness by the senior leadership team to provide us with any support have left us disillusioned with the school.

Yes, when my daughter first joined (in year 6) she was ganged up on by a large group of girls. Just earlier this year, she stood up to them only to be called ‘a selfish pig’. When she told the teachers, they told her that if she handled it herself it would be more effective and they couldn’t do anything about it. I was shocked, especially by her form teacher at the time who made my daughter cry by saying to her in front of the entire class, something along the lines of “No one likes a selfish, self centred, brat. Which is what you are. You have no friends because of your horrible personality. If you changed it, people would maybe like you. You should be more confident, like me. I’m amazing, be exactly like me”. The pastoral care and leadership team for both schools is, I have to admit, not very good.

When I say both schools I the prep and the senior school.

I'm sorry, but this is shocking coming from a teacher. Did you file a complaint against this person?

I filed a complaint against the teacher. However, no action was taken.

Wow, I am shocked to read such experiences at HS. They market themselves as a happy school with excellent pastoral care. I guess you only know the full picture of a school once your child is there.

They have stringent policies they have to follow. Any such complaint would have been fully investigated. I think it is generally a happy school - I have 2 daughters going through the school. I also think they take great care to look after the wellbeing of pupils more so than other schools I hear about from friends