Princethorpe College is a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

day school located in

Princethorpe Princethorpe is a village and civil parish in the Rugby district of Warwickshire, England. In the 2011 census the parish had a population 376, increasing to 429 at the 2021 census. Princethorpe is located roughly halfway between the towns of Ru ...

, near

Rugby, Warwickshire Rugby is a market town in eastern Warwickshire, England, close to the River Avon. In the 2021 census its population was 78,125, making it the second-largest town in Warwickshire. It is the main settlement within the larger Borough of Rugby whi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Princethorpe College opened in September 1966 after the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSCs), purchased the site to use as the senior school for their already established boys’ school, St Bede’s College in Leamington Spa. It occupies a former

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

monastery surrounded by of parkland.

History

The college was founded by the

Missionaries of the Sacred Heart The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC; la, Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis; french: Missionnaires du Sacré-Coeur) are a missionary congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1854 by Servant of God Jules Chevalier (182 ...

and opened its doors in September 1966. Girls were first admitted into the

sixth form In the education systems of England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepare for A-l ...

in 1976. It became fully coeducational in 1995. It currently occupies the site of St Mary's Priory, which had been home to

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

nuns since 1792 before the house was disbanded in 2002. In late 2007 a new £2.4 million dedicated Sixth Form Centre opened. Built around an atrium, the new building provides classrooms, a lecture room, common room, a Sixth Form dining room, coffee bar and a careers room and is linked to the main school building on two levels by a walkway. In late 2014, a new £4.5 million teaching block named 'The Limes' was opened. This was built onto the side of the existing sports centre, and is linked on both floors. The Limes contains 2 new ICT rooms, new classrooms for Modern Foreign Languages, English & Sports Theory, and staff bases for English, Modern Foreign Languages, ICT and PE. It also contains 200+ lockers for pupils. Work was completed in September 2017 on the refurbishment of the College's state-of-the-art Clarkson Theatre.

Extracurricular activities

The college offers a wide range of clubs, societies and activities that take place at lunch-time and after school. Art,

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

, computing, dance, drama, equestrian, photography and technology are usually offered, including the

Duke of Edinburgh Award The Duke of Edinburgh's Award (commonly abbreviated DofE) is a youth awards programme founded in the United Kingdom in 1956 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, that has since expanded to 144 nations. The awards recognise adolescents and young ...

Scheme and overseas trips. There is a

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

on site which is available for students to worship in.

Sport

Pupils participate in games and PE from Year 7 to Upper Sixth. All the major traditional sports are offered, in addition to other sports such as

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

trampolining Trampolining or trampoline gymnastics is a competitive Olympic sport in which athletes perform acrobatics while bouncing on a trampoline. In competition, these can include simple jumps in the straight, pike, tuck, or straddle position to more com ...

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cour ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

rock-climbing Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically and ...

equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: *Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes in ...

and skiing competitions. There is a programme of inter-school fixtures and Princethorpe has a tradition of pupils gaining county, regional and international representative honours, not least Old Princethorpian Ian Bell of cricketing fame. Sports facilities include a Sports Hall, a Fitness Centre and squash courts, a floodlit

astro-turf AstroTurf is an American subsidiary of SportGroup that produces artificial turf for playing surfaces in sports. The original AstroTurf product was a short-pile synthetic turf invented in 1965 by Monsanto. Since the early 2000s, AstroTurf has m ...

pitch, a regionally recognised cross-country course, three concrete tennis courts and over sixty acres of games pitches and fields.

Notable alumni

Ian Bell Ian Ronald Bell (born 11 April 1982) is an English former cricketer who played international cricket in all formats for the England cricket team and county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. A right-handed higher/middle order batsm ...

, MBE, England cricketer *

Jordan King Jordan King (born 26 February 1994 in Warwick) is a British racing driver from Harbury, Warwickshire who last competed in the 2019–20 FIA World Endurance Championship. He is currently a reserve and development driver for the Mahindra Form ...

, Formula One Development Driver *

Dominic Ostler Dominic Piers Ostler (born 15 July 1970) is a former cricketer who played in first-class, List A and Twenty20 cricket for Warwickshire between 1990 and 2004. He also played for the England A cricket team in 1995 and 1996 in first-class and Li ...

, retired Warwickshire county cricketer *

Tom Hilditch Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in '' Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a character ...

, award-winning journalist and magazine publisher * Mark Lewis, cricketer *

Richard Wilding Richard Wilding (born 8 May 1965Wilding, Prof Richard David
- Debrett’s People of Today 2017 (Edited by Lu ...

, British Academic & Business Professional *

Jonathan Gullis Jonathan Edward Gullis (born 9 January 1990) is a Conservative Party politician and former teacher, who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-on-Trent North since 2019. Education and early career Gullis attended Princethorpe ...

, Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent North *

Aaron Pressley Aaron Alex Pressley (born 7 November 2001) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Accrington Stanley, on loan from club Brentford. He is a product of the Aston Villa and Heart of Midlothian academies and was ca ...

, footballer

References

External links

School WebsiteProfile
on the

ISC #REDIRECT ISC {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

website Independent schools in Warwickshire Roman Catholic independent schools in the Archdiocese of Birmingham Schools in Rugby, Warwickshire Member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference Educational institutions established in 1966 1966 establishments in England {{Warwickshire-school-stub