Name: Henry

Secondary school: Ampleforth College

University Destination + subject studied: Oxford Classics

1. what is your first memory starting your school?

Everyone in our year gathering on the quad, all meeting each other for the first time, and the excitement of it all.

2. What is your best memory from your school?

Performing Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and receiving a standing ovation.

3. What is one thing you would like to change about your school?

The pastoral care at the time could and should have been better. I do acknowledge, however, that we all did not have the same awareness of these issues as we do now.

4. Any fancy traditions?

My prep school were very diligent in preparing us for the entrance exam, and as a scholarship candidate, they also put on extra evening classes for us.

5. How was the academic support?

The academic support was excellent. They were very attentive to my progress and I had every opportunity to push my learning forward beyond the curriculum as much as I wanted to.

6. Is your school a religious school?

Yes, Roman Catholic.

7. What was your favourite co-curricular achievement while at your school?

Achieving a Diploma in Music performance on the tuba. It was the first time I had to work with focus and consistency over a long period of time, and it was the first goal I had set for myself without any external guidance or direction.

8. How much emphasis is placed on Oxbridge as a university destination?

For those that were considered capable of gaining entrance, there was a great enthusiasm and support network.

9. Do you keep in touch with the school, now you have left?

Yes, I am still in regular contact with my old teachers and some of the monks. I hold them very dear and consider myself to have been an enormous beneficiary of there care.

10. Did you ever have a detention at your school?

I had a detention every Friday and every weekend for my final year! I had some differences of opinion with my teachers about how I wanted to focus my learning on the last year, spending more time pushing my musical practice. We never fell out though, I just got a lot of detentions!

11. What are the pastoral support options?

When I was a student there was one school counsellor, though he was normally called in when kids were caught smoking. The school was run by monks and they provided a pastoral care in their own fashion. I know now that the pastoral elements have greatly been developed, though I do not know the details.

12. Bonus: If you had to summarise your school in 3 words, what would they be?

Eccentric, spiritual, open