The Good Schools Guide

Since 2020, Gareth Parker-Jones. Previously deputy head academic. Educated at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital School in Bristol where he was a keen cricketer, boarder and head boy (flawless headmaster pedigree). History at Pembroke College, Oxford; then, having discovered teaching as a gappie in Australia, positions at Harrow, University College School and Sevenoaks.

Despite his impressive CV, it feels like Mr P-J has been at Rugby forever: an amiable, chatty head (we love a chatty head), charming without being smooth, so comfortable in his study that he didn’t even flinch as we balanced our macchiato perilously on the thick cream carpet. He’d have enjoyed it as a pupil here, he thinks. Big goal – ‘to become the boarding school of choice’ – requires the school to ‘be dynamic, to get better,’ with teaching and character education central to everything. ‘We’re in a position to be a market leader,’ he says, ambitious but not unrealistic given the school’s existing reputation for excellence and the dwindling of full boarding elsewhere.

==

The word is spreading, with national and global expansion underway, ‘a hub and spoke model’; a fourth prep’s just joined the burgeoning UK group. Wide geographical spread - with the exception of nearby Bilton Grange – creates a natural ‘boarding pathway’ to Rugby. Global schools - Thailand, Japan and Nigeria with Hanoi and Dubai imminent - in part support funding for domestic bursaries.

Back at HQ, Mr P-J is ‘a superb educationalist,’ says one parent; ‘Much more head than CEO,’ another observes. Greets students by name on their way into chapel; lunches in a different house every day; teaches the whole of F block. No wonder life is ‘busy, very busy’. In scraps of down-time, he reads history (currently ‘almost at the end’ of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s ‘1929’) and that morning had been for a run in anticipation of the school’s cross-country, the Crick, that weekend: ‘It’s personally soul destroying, my way of annually charting my decline,’ he laughs ruefully, ‘everything hurts!’ Wife is head of theology and philosophy and their son and daughter are current students.

It’s nice to find a school putting real welly into year 9, so often seen as a warm-up elsewhere: there’s ‘a strong case’, academic deputy says, for investing in those students. In the face of AI, school is ‘making the most of the humans in the room,’ putting ‘hard thinking’, rigorous questioning and student-led discussion at the heart of every lesson. Carefully curated texts are set for prep so that teachers can get straight to the crunchy bits, developing oracy skills and ‘growing their pupils’ brains’. This ‘flipped classroom’ technique is well-established, of course, but we found Rugby’s adoption of it refreshingly genuine. ‘The idea is to encourage better thinking in a world of bitesize text.’ ‘I feel that she’s pushed harder than she would be at our local schools,’ said one parent, characteristic of many.

Results are towards the upper end of the co-ed boarding pack, particularly in sixth form. At GCSE, biology, computing, English, geography, Latin and ancient Greek banked high proportions of 9s last year. Astronomy (cool!), classical civilisations, PE, computing and drama ensure that all interests are covered. One parent wished the options were a little less trad – ‘Can’t they learn to cook a lasagne instead?’ – but conceded there’s plenty of opportunities to polish culinary skills off timetable. Pupils choose from French, German, Italian and Spanish, though native language GCSEs can be facilitated on a one-off basis.

We saw lots of hard thinking in action. English IB-ers were prepping orals on Orwell’s Moroccan essays, ‘Linked to global issues, naturally, since it’s IB.’ Just five in the group, some on laptops and others brandishing highlighters, the session felt collaborative and grown-up. Off the Old Quad, further mathematicians explained the strings of algebra they’d written on the white-boarded walls, patiently talking us through some binomials. ‘I wasn’t sure about further maths,’ one aspiring economist told us, ‘but I’m so pleased that I took it.’

Around 60 newbies join year 12, settling quickly into house communities. Rugby is no different from other schools in having a smaller IB cohort than A level, though lots of new joiners are drawn by this option.

Three A levels for most, plus EPQ or further maths. Maths huge, with economics, physics and chemistry also popular. Humanities smaller, though English, politics and history all healthy. Modern and ancient languages dwindling, per the national trend. One student told us they’d have started with four A levels if that had been an option. At IB, English is the biggest higher level with biology, politics and economics also strong. Results very spread out, but lots of 6s and the odd 7 in most subjects. Some students pushed one way or the other by subject choices: fine art, photography and textiles available as discrete A levels; IB rolls them together. Theatre studies available at A level but not IB; psychology IB but not A level.

Academic enrichment abounds. We found students using their free periods to dissect fruit flies’ brains as part of collaboration with Stanford. ‘It’s opened my eyes to research,’ said one; ‘I can dissect a fly’s brain in 1 minute 12 seconds,’ the other proudly told us. A mind-blowing opportunity (literally, if you’re a fruit fly) which allows Rugbeians to feed into real, meaningful biochemistry.

Proactive futures department has three full-time members of staff; one-to-one meetings and coordinated support for Oxbridge, medical schools, elite sports, apprenticeships, portfolios, international applications etc. When we visited they were busy preparing for 66 outside speakers to join 25 different career panels that weekend. Also plugs essay competitions, Olympiads etc and identifies gaps in super-curricular provision – for instance, law society about to be revived.

New director of music thrilled by the opportunities that thriving department has to offer. With 80 events a year, from informal coffee concerts (hot chocolate and cookies also available) to full concertos, open mic nights to singing in St Andrew’s Church whilst locals pop in for lunch, you’d be hard pushed not to find your groove. 11 rock bands, ten ensembles, three a capella groups. Orchestra collaborates with Royal Birmingham Conservatoire; ‘side by side’ performances expose young musicians to the idea of a career in music. Scottish contingent brings healthy bagpiping scene. Choristers from Bilton Grange support chapel choir; evensong, sometimes broadcast on Radio 3, recently featured in documentary about choral life. ‘The standard is extraordinary,’ says a mum whose child is ‘thriving’ as a music scholar.

The Macready doubles as the town’s only professional theatre; imminent refurb will include West-end level rigging. Festival on the Close puts Rugby’s drama firmly on the radar; 200 workshops, including collaboration with Stomp, open to local schoolchildren too. Thesps tour to Coventry, Bloomsbury and Edinburgh. Dance currently only an extracurricular option but performing arts scholars are all involved, working with ensemble in residence, Motionhouse; agents invited to annual showcase. ‘Ballet and hip hop is a massive boom area,’ school says, and indeed the dress rehearsal that we watched of Mozart’s Requiem, in partnership with Kings International Ballet, was strikingly beautiful.

Daily notices, read out after lunch in house (we were in Bradley), give a snapshot of school life: good luck to all dancers and musicians in Mozart’s Requiem; if anyone’s being sporty this afternoon, good luck with that too; more student marshalls are needed to oversee this weekend’s Crick and Marshall run, please; come to Fem Soc if you can. ‘Yesterday I went on a trip to Wales and walked up a mountain,’ one year 9 told us; our year 12 guides had to whizz off to organise their upcoming gold D of E expedition. Lots of encouragement to pursue whims and follow passions: we met a sports scholar who’s taken up the piano; a synchronised swimmer who trains offsite twice a week; and the head of CalSoc, keen to organise some Scottish reeling lessons and a joint social with Oundle.

Trips in the holidays travel the world. Sportsmen and women to the usual sunny and snowy climes, art historians to New York and Rome, writers to creative retreats, linguists to France, Spain, Italy and Austria and, of course, exchanges to Rugby's international outposts in Japan and Thailand.

Usually, school origin stories are a quirky aside. Here, though, the history is more palpable. Founded in 1567 by Lawrence Sheriff, born in Rugby and by then a bigwig grocer who counted Elizabeth I amongst his customers, perking her up with sugar, ginger and nutmeg. Sheriff bought up eight acres of farmland on the edge of London and left it to the school in his will; this unpromising patch became Bloomsbury (think Georgian squares and Lamb’s Conduit Street, packed with chic restaurants and indie shops) and continues to generate a huge rental income for the school.

As nineteenth century Bloomsbury boomed, Rugby School was also going great guns; it’s this heritage that you’ll feel most strongly. In 1823, William Webb Ellis picked up a ball and ran with it, ensuring Rugby’s position as titan of British sporting folklore. We love the image of Dowager Queen Adelaide visiting in 1839 to watch a match that involved 300 players, muddy boys wearing tasselled caps as a mark of respect for their royal visitor. The gesture gave us the ‘caps’ still awarded for international sports appearances; first team Rugbeains still get them today.

Victorian Rugby also gave us three significant Thomases: Arnold, Rugby’s greatest head master according to school’s own website (Mr P-J’s v self-effacing), brought ‘religious and moral principle’ and ‘gentlemanly conduct’ to the school in the 1830s; an era which Thomas Hughes, one of his pupils, immortalised in his novel, ‘Tom Brown’s School Days’, whose hero says his nightly prayers and plays a lot of cricket. For school history nerds like us, these names are very evocative: squint and you can almost see them filing across The Close to Chapel.

What would Thomas Arnold recognise today, we wondered: ‘He would recognise the development of character, connected to Aristotle and virtue and goodness – they are timeless values,’ says head. We think he’d also recognise the quiet respect for tradition: senior staff are gowned for formal occasions; each house has a ‘drawing room’ where guests are taken for an apple juice before lunch, or where Oxbridge success is celebrated with a glass of fizz; visit admissions, and you’ll sit in rooms with grand fireplaces, sash windows and thick carpets. Though understated, Rugby is solidly rooted in its very British history.

Character education – now encapsulated by ‘Whole person, whole point’ ethos - referenced by head, parents, students and dozens of posters around the school. House communities are central to it. Our lunch companions in Bradley, unfazed by hosting a guest, were full of beans: ‘We have the best house spirit and we have the most fun!’ Esoteric activities include ‘Choc Soc’ and MFL Bake-off: ‘It’s always a disaster, baking German cookies with German instructions.’ Annual Push Kart race around the Close another source of joy: ‘Chanting and music and fancy dress, you get tiny F blocks chanting at the top of their voices next to these huge rugby players, it’s so funny!’ After lunch, we stood for the HM to say grace: ‘For food and friendships, Amen’. Amen indeed.

Uniform is smart but practical. Blue tweed jackets for everyone – light blue for every day and dark blue for Sundays and special occasions. Umbrellas are ‘strongly recommended’. We visited on an exceptionally blustery day, the wind whistling along the high street and across The Close; students’ response to the weather pragmatic, with girls wearing pyjama bottoms under their long, navy blue skirts, ‘otherwise they billow’. We spotted the occasional (not uniform) Ugg boot, too. ‘The children we saw at the open day looked a bit scruffy and that felt more homely to us,’ one mum told us; ‘I liked that one had paint on her skirt,’ said another.

Rugbeians of yesteryear are just who you’d hope for: a pleasing collection of politicians (including Neville Chamberlain), authors (including Lewis Carroll), cricketers, philosophers, bishops, ambassadors and lieutenant generals. More recently, best-selling author and millennial hero Dolly Alderton, Ella Mills of ‘Deliciously Ella’ fame, Will Butler-Adams, the CEO of super-cool Brompton Bicycle Ltd and Jacob Bethell, currently playing cricket for England having been their youngest ever men’s captain.