Today

What Makes Oakhill Different

A visit to Oakhill is all that is needed to understand what others comment on as the warm, friendly, caring, family atmosphere as soon as they enter the College, this is what makes us special.

Only last May, OFSTED inspectors reported the following:

“The College rightly noted that this (Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the pupils) is a strength of the school and in the inspectors’ view it is outstanding. Behaviour is generally outstanding, especially in lessons and whilst pupils move around the school.”

We believe that our strength also lies in challenging pupils to participate and contribute in a wide range of additional activities that develop personal skills and character beyond the purely academic. They benefit from small class sizes and our personal approach: the staff get to know pupils well, together with their strengths and weaknesses. Our strong Christian ethos reinforces the value of care and consideration for others.

However, these activities enhance academic achievement rather than compete with it: when compared with pupils of similar abilities, those at Oakhill achieve almost one grade higher in each subject at GCSE, The results in 2006 and 2007 placed us in the top 25% of schools nationally for “adding value” to our pupils’ performances.

Confidence gained through engaging in an array of activities and performances, as well as learning how to organise their time to fill a busy schedule, enables them to respond well to the rigours of public examinations.

At Oakhill, this makes a difference that visitors find hard to quantify but easy to detect . We invite you to sample this and see us in action.

Admissions

Entry to Oakhill, whether at Preparatory or Senior level, is by a visit and interview, followed by a one day trial and assessment.  This assessment is designed to measure ability and potential against the age group, rather than to act as a pass/fail entrance examination. Nonetheless it is clearly in the interests of both pupil and school to form as accurate a view as possible of a pupil’s strengths and weaknesses in order to best serve his or her aspirations and ambitions, and to ensure a purposeful start to their school career. The more information we have the more likely we are to achieve this.