(He who does things for others does them for himself) , established = , closed = , type = Public school

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 * Independe ...

day school , religion = Nondenominational Christian , president = , head_label = Head , head = Edward Elliott , r_head_label = , r_head = , chair_label = Chairman of the Governing Body , chair = Jonathan W Scott , founder =

Stephen Perse Stephen Perse (1548 – 30 September 1615) was an English academic and philanthropist, who founded schools that still carry his name. Biography He was probably educated at Norwich School, and took his B.A. degree at Gonville and Caius Colle ...

, medium = , address =

Hills Road Hills Road is an arterial road (part of the A1307) in southeast Cambridge, England. It runs between Regent Street at the junction with Lensfield Road and Gonville Place (the A603) to the northwest and a roundabout by the Cambridge Bi ...

, location = , city =

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, district = , postcode = CB2 8QF , county =

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to t ...

, country = England , coordinates = , local_authority = , dfeno = 873/6010 , urn = 110923 , ofsted = , staff = 138 teaching, 117 support staff, 26 peripatetics , capacity = , enrolment = 1,564 (2016) , gender = Co-educational , lower_age = 11 , upper_age = 18 , houses = 8 , colours =
Purple and black , publication = OP News Magazine , free_label_1 = Alumni , free_1 = Old Perseans , free_label_3 = , free_3 = , website = http://www.perse.co.uk/ The Perse School is a public school (English

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 * Independe ...

day A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two ...

and, in the case of the Perse, a former

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exte ...

) in

, England. Founded in 1615 by

, its motto is ''Qui facit per alium facit per se'', taken to mean 'He who does things for others does them for himself'. The School began accepting girls at 11 and 13+ in September 2010 and was fully co-educational by September 2012. 'Perse' is a member of the

Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) is an association of the head teachers of 361 independent schools (both boarding schools and day schools), some traditionally described as public schools. 298 Members are based in the Un ...

, an association of the leading UK independent schools. The organisation now comprises three schools, which together provide for children aged 3 through to 18. The Pelican is the Perse's nursery and pre-preparatory school, and accommodates pupils from 3–7. It is situated on Glebe Road, close to the main school site. Preparatory education for students aged 7 to 11 years old is provided by the Perse Prep, which is located close to the Upper School, just north of the junction of Long Road and Trumpington Road. In Year 7 pupils usually progress to the Upper School, where they sit

GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...

or IGCSE examinations and

A-Levels The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational a ...

History

The school was founded in 1615 at its original site in Free School Lane, Cambridge. Its former buildings now house the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. In 1960, the school moved to the site it now occupies as its 'Upper' school on Hills Road. There have been multiple phases of expansion, particularly in the 21st century. Among notable developments is the Peter Hall Performing Arts Centre, a 400-seat theatre, exhibition and rehearsal space designed by architects Haworth Tompkins, which opened in 2018. An old prospectus lists the fees as £3 per term in 1890. From 1945 to 1976 it was a

direct grant grammar school A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted ...

, offering free places to 40% of pupils. Following the abolition of the Assisted Places Scheme, The Perse no longer received any state funding and became independent. The school was ranked 13th in the Sunday Times Parent Power league table in 2019 and 6th in the Daily Telegraph national table of A Level, Pre-U and IB results with 83% A* and A grades from 175 candidates. In 2021, The Sunday Times also named The Perse School as the top independent secondary school in East Anglia, as the school had the best performance in the GCE A Level Examinations in the region.

Motto

The school motto is ''Qui facit per alium facit per se'', usually taken to mean "He who does things for others does them for himself". This is an example of a

rebus A rebus () is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases. For example: the word "been" might be depicted by a rebus showing an illustrated bumblebee next to a plus sign (+ ...

motto, the Latin sentence ending in a word play on the founder's name "per se" and his benefaction. A

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term ...

dedicated to the school's founder, Dr Stephen Perse, was installed in Free School Lane, Cambridge.

Competitions, Olympiads and scholarships

Pupils have competed and scored highly in academic competitions and

Olympiads An olympiad ( el, Ὀλυμπιάς, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the ancient and modern Olympic Games. Although the ancient Olympics were established during Greece's Archaic Era, it was not until ...

, in addition to winning awards including

Arkwright Engineering Scholarships The Arkwright Engineering Scholarship is an engineering award given to engineering students within the United Kingdom and Channel Islands. It has been running since 1991 and, as part of The Smallpeice Trust, has awarded over 6,000 scholarships to ...

and Nuffield Research Placements (previously Nuffield Science Bursaries). Students have won scholarships for summer placements at the Weizmann Institute of Science in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and research institutes in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. British competition results include: *First place in the Pi Wars robot competition *First place in the Schools' Challenge general knowledge competition *First place (winning the

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

prize) in the National Cipher Challenge *First place in the Bank of England ''Target Two Point Zero'' interest rate challenge *Invitation to the British Physics Olympiad presentation afternoon (top 4 in the country in the AS Challenge) *Qualifying for the UKMT Team Maths Challenge final (winning the poster competition) *Qualifying for the British Informatics Olympiad final (top 15 in the country) *Qualifying for Round 2 (top 20 to 25 in the country) of the UK Chemistry Olympiad *Scoring Gold in Round 1 of United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad Students have also competed in international competitions including the

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre- university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, excep ...

, the

Balkan Mathematical Olympiad The Balkan Mathematical Olympiad (BMO) is an international contest of winners of high-school national competitions from European countries. Participants (incomplete) * Albania ** BMO 1991: 1.Julian Mulla 2.Erion Dasho 3.Elton Bojaxhi 4.Enke ...

, the European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad, the

International Biology Olympiad The International Biology Olympiad (IBO) is a biological olympiad for pre-university students under the age 20, and is one of the most well-known International Science Olympiads. The first IBO was held in Czechoslovakia in 1990, and it has since be ...

, the International Rocketry Challenge, the

European Union Contest for Young Scientists The European Union (EU) Contest for Young Scientists is a science fair, initiated by the European Commission. It is a part of the European Union Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, and is managed by the Directorate Gen ...

and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Innovation

In 2018, The Perse School partnered with a Cambridge-based education technology entrepreneur, Rob Percival, to support the creation of an online artificial intelligence maths teaching platform. Blutick in association with The Perse School, exhibited at the BETT Show in London, 2019 to launch a free beta version.

Developments

The Perse School began accepting girls at 11+ and 13+ in September 2010 and became fully co-educational in September 2012 . Since 2020, The Perse School Cambridge International (TPSCI) has liaised with partners to open up The Perse international schools outside of England. Currently, two international schools have been set up, namely The Perse School Singapore (opened in Jan 2020) and The Perse School Suzhou in China (opened in Sep 2021).

Headmaster's blog

On his blog the headmaster, Ed Elliott, described his 'ten second challenge' in which he would give students who "commit occasional minor misdemeanours (such as forgetting a book) the opportunity to talk their way out of a punishment". The story was quickly picked up by the mainstream media who reported that pupils were "let off punishment for clever excuses".

Notable Perseans

Academia

* Maurice Bloch, anthropologist * Harold James, professor of history and international relations * W. E. Johnson, logician * F. R. Leavis, literary critic * Michael Loewe, sinologist * Edward Henry Palmer, orientalist * G. L. S. Shackle, economist * E. H. Warmington, classicist

Art

Thomas P. Campbell Thomas Patrick Campbell (born July 12, 1962) is the director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, overseeing the de Young and Legion of Honor museums. He served as the director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 2 ...

, director of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Business

* David Tang,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

-based entrepreneur

Engineering

* Arthur Marshall, aviation engineer * Anthony Michell, hydraulic engineer

Film and theatre

Ranjit Bolt Ranjit Bolt OBE (born 1959) is a British playwright and translator. He was born in Manchester of Anglo-Indian parents and is the nephew of playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt.Programme notes for ''The Grouch'', West Yorkshire Playhouse Febru ...

, translator and playwright * Marius Goring, actor * Peter Hall, founder of the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

Humphrey Jennings Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907 – 24 September 1950) was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson in 19 ...

, film director * Matthew Lloyd, theatre director,

Royal Exchange, Manchester The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal ...

* Colin McFarlane, actor * Jeremy Silberston, film director

Law

* Mark Potter, Appeal Court judge and President of the Family Division

Media

Simon Akam Simon Akam is a British journalist and historian of the British Army. Early life Akam was born in Cambridge and educated at The Perse School, the University of Oxford, and Columbia University. During his gap year in 2003, he served a short ser ...

, author, writing on military history and the British Army since 9/11 * Mel Calman, cartoonist * Rodney Dale, writer and publisher *

John Gross John Gross FRSL (12 March 1935 – 10 January 2011) was an eminent English man of letters. A leading intellectual, writer, anthologist, and critic, '' The Guardian'' (in a tribute titled "My Hero") and ''The Spectator'' were among several pu ...

, critic and editor *

Tom Harwood Thomas Hedley Fairfax Harwood (born 26 August 1996) is a British journalist and political commentator. He is the political correspondent for GB News. He worked for the right-wing political news website Guido Fawkes between 2018 and 2021, and was ...

, journalist for ''

Guido Fawkes Guido Fawkes is a right-wing political website published by British-Irish political blogger Paul Staines. History In September 2004, Staines began writing an anonymous blog about British politics under the name of Guido Fawkes, an alternative ...

'', ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' and GB News * Tom Rosenthal (publisher) (1935–2014), publisher and art critic *

Mark Saggers Mark Leonard Saggers (born 28 May 1959) is a British journalist and radio presenter. Early life He attended the Perse School, Cambridge, 1970–77 and was a keen sportsman representing the school at Rugby football, rugby, Field hockey, hockey, a ...

, BBC sports broadcaster

Military

*Group Captain William Neil McKechnie,

George Cross The George Cross (GC) is the highest award bestowed by the British government for non-operational Courage, gallantry or gallantry not in the presence of an enemy. In the British honours system, the George Cross, since its introduction in 1940, ...

recipient * Ralph Lilley Turner MC, 2nd/3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles

Music

* Pete Atkin, singer/songwriter *

David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined as guitarist and co-lead vocalist in 1967, shortly before the departure of founding member Syd Barrett. P ...

, singer/songwriter and guitarist of

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philosophical lyrics an ...

Spike Hughes Patrick Cairns "Spike" Hughes (19 October 1908 – 2 February 1987) was a British musician, composer and arranger involved in the worlds of classical music and jazz. He has been called Britain's earliest jazz composer. Later in his career, he ...

, jazz musician and journalist * Ronnie Ross, jazz musician * John Woolford, first boyfriend of

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

Politics

* Anthony Browne, Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire * Rajani Palme Dutt, leading figure in the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

* Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat MP for

2010-2015 * David Steiner, New York State

Commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...

of Education * Donald Tebbit, diplomat,

British High Commissioner to Australia The High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to Australia is an officer of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the United Kingdom's foremost diplomatic representative to the Commonwealth of Australia. Despite Britain's close relationship wi ...

* Quentin Thomas, civil servant, head of the

British Board of Film Classification The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of ...

Religion

John Polkinghorne John Charlton Polkinghorne (16 October 1930 – 9 March 2021) was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest. A prominent and leading voice explaining the relationship between science and religion, he was professor of m ...

, physicist and theologian *Bishop Jeremy Taylor, an influence on the foundation of

Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

Science

* Gustav Victor Rudolf Born, pharmacologist * Sarah Martins Da Silva, gynaecologist and scientist *Associate Professor Anthony Lowe, mathematical physicist and

actuary An actuary is a business professional who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. The name of the corresponding field is actuarial science. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require asset man ...

Brian G. Marsden Brian Geoffrey Marsden (5 August 1937 – 18 November 2010) was a British astronomer and the longtime director of the Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (director emeritus from 2006 to 2010). ...

, astronomer * Ronald G. W. Norrish,

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

in 1967 *

George Paget Thomson Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS (; 3 May 189210 September 1975) was a British physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognized for his discovery of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction. Education and early life Thomson ...

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 1937

Sport

* Zaman Akhter, cricketer * Charles Clayton, cricketer * Owen Giles, Northampton Saints rugby union player * Alex Coles, Northamption Saints rugby union player * Horace Gray, cricketer * Richard Hesketh, cricketer * Tess Howard, field hockey player * Reimell Ragnauth, cricketer

Staff

Headmasters

* George Griffith, MA - died 1686 * Frederick Heppenstall, MA - 1864 to 1874 * Dr W. H. D. Rouse, MA, LittD (Cantab) - 1902 to 1928. Formerly a fellow of

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

* H. A. Wootton - 1928 to 1945 * Stanley Stubbs, MA - 1945 to 1969. Formerly a housemaster at

Gresham's School Gresham's School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in Holt, Norfolk, England, one of the top thirty International Baccalaureate schools in England. The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free g ...

* Anthony E. Melville - 1969 to 1987. Formerly senior history master at Haileybury * Dr Martin Stephen - 1987 to 1994. Subsequently, High Master of Manchester Grammar School from 1994 to 2004 and then St Paul's School from 2004 to 2011. Director of Education for GEMS Education UK. Non-Executive Chairman of the Clarendon Academies Group * Dr Nigel P. V. Richardson - 1994 to 2008. Headmaster of The Dragon School from 1989 to 1992. Chairman of the

in 2007. Governor of Magdalen College School and Haileybury. AGBIS board member. Author of the biography ''Thring of Uppingham: Victorian Educator'' * Mr Edward C. Elliott, MA - 2008 onwards. Joined the school in 1997 as head of sixth form and was senior deputy head before being appointed headmaster

Notable staff

* Henry Caldwell Cook, (1886–1939) educationalist *

Frederick Crossfield Happold Frederick Crossfield Happold, (1893–1971) was an educational pioneer, tenured headmaster, author and decorated British army officer. Early life and First World War Born the son of a butcher in Scotforth, Lancashire the family nevertheless had d ...

DSO ( Cantab.) *

Glenn Kirkham Glenn Charles W. Kirkham (born 8 October 1982) is an English field hockey player who played for the English and British national team. Hockey Kirkham made his international senior debut for the national squad in January 2002 in a match agains ...

, captain of the England national field hockey team, served as a sports coach at the Perse from 2005 to 2014, including as assistant director of sport and head of hockey from 2012 to 2014. After three years away from The Perse School, Kirkham returned to the new post of Upper School Director of Sport in September 2017. Kirkham participated at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nat ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

, and the

2010 Commonwealth Games The 2010 Commonwealth Games (Hindi: 2010 राष्ट्रमण्डल खेल), officially known as the XIX Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Delhi 2010, was an international multi-sport event that was held in Delhi, India, ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

* Helen Richardson Walsh, hockey gold medalist

References

External links

*
School Roll of Honour for the World Wars
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perse School 1615 establishments in England Educational institutions established in the 1610s Independent schools in Cambridgeshire Schools in Cambridge Member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference