Address: Tudor Hall, Wykham Park, Banbury, Oxfordshire OX16 9UR
Website: tudorhallschool.com
Founded: 1850
Number of Pupils: 300
Fees:Termly fees from January 2025, exclusive of VAT: Boarding £15,860; Day £9,675. Termly fees from January 2025 inclusive of VAT (we are not passing on the full 20%): Boarding £19,032; Day £11,610
Head Teacher: Ms Julie Lodrick
Religious Affiliation: Church of England
EntranceProcedure: 11+ assessment takes place during the Autumn Term of Year 6, one year prior to entry. 13+ assessment takes place in the Spring Term of Year 7, 18 months prior to entry. 16+ assessment takes place in the Autumn Term of Year 11, one year prior to entry.
Contact: Elspeth Dyer, Registrar
Email: [email protected]
School Visits: Please call 01295 756259. Whole School Open Days in September and May; Sixth Form Open Day in September; Open Fridays each month throughout academic year and individual visits welcome.
The Curriculum
Tudor girls are encouraged to take risks, develop a growth mindset and ‘to aim high’. We are a High Performance Learning pathway school, the only one in Oxfordshire and one of fewer than 15 independent schools in the UK working towards the prestigious World Class School accreditation based on cognitive and neuroscience research.
Years 7 to 9 (known as Todds, IIs and IIIs) at Tudor Hall provide a broad curriculum offering a wide range of subjects. By Year 10 (IV), pupils will begin to develop areas of specialisation and interest, reducing the number of subjects and studying chosen subjects in greater depth.
Teaching and learning is very well resourced, with 21 subjects available at GCSE; 28 subjects at A Level and equivalent, plus EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) and Leiths Professional Cookery course. Girls are not limited by option grids; they are asked to select their preferences and the timetable is (as far as possible) built around these to allow unique and unusual combinations that are unlikely to be available in other, larger schools.
Girls are encouraged to make subject choices for GCSE in which there is an interest and in which strengths lie. There is a wealth of Careers advice, talks and opportunities for girls at every age and support is given to avoid imbalances which could prevent entry into particular courses at university level.
Games & The Arts
Sport and PE is integral to life at Tudor Hall. Core sports are hockey, netball, lacrosse, tennis, athletics, swimming and cricket, with opportunities to participate in dance and gymnastics. Sports facilities on site include: 46 acres of grounds, heated swimming pool, floodlit astroturf, floodlit hard tennis and netball courts, Sports Hall, lacrosse pitches, state-of-the-art fitness suite, hall for dance. The Tudor Hall equestrian team is well established and takes part in a number of high-profile competitions.
Our art, ceramics, photography, design technology and textiles departments all have specialist experienced teachers with expert skill levels to inspire pupils. The standard of the girls’ work is exceptional, evidenced through their public examination results as well as by the numbers who go on to have their career in the world of art and design. There are new, first-class facilities for ceramics, textiles, photography and the Art Department was recently refurbished.
There is a strong Drama tradition at Tudor and every student has experienced treading the boards by the time they leave the school, with frequent and regular productions for every age in our wonderful, state-of-the-art Studio, opened by OT (Old Tudorian) and Academy Award Winner, Serena Armitage. Several girls have successfully auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and we have a partnership with Chipping Norton Theatre.
An average 200 individual music lessons take place per week and the girls achieve excellent results in instrumental examinations at every Grade. Music clubs are aimed at all standards: orchestra, junior and senior bands, junior and chamber choirs, junior and senior flute groups, and junior and senior string groups. House Music competitions and invites to community events across the year, including Chipping Norton Music Festival, allow girls to enjoy a wealth of performing opportunities at a high standard.
Pastoral Care
Whether your daughter would be a full boarder or day girl, at Tudor the aim of our pastoral care is to help our girls develop into grounded young women with the self- respect to become all that they want to be and the resilience to withstand the pressures of modern life and face the challenges that come their way head-on.
So, how do we do that? By working together as a team. The team consists of the staff, the girls and their parents. They all have an equally important role to play.
The tutor and housemistress, supported by the health centre staff, the Chaplain, counsellors and other staff, make up the pastoral team. Their aim is to provide a safety-net around the girls so they are able to take responsible risks, so that they might grow. We constantly encourage them to step up to challenges, whilst providing them with a safe environment to do so. All girls are members of small tutor groups, with a tutor who quickly gets to know them. Sixth Form girls are linked to the youngest House to help day and boarding girls to settle in, along with a programme of specially designed activities.
University Places
Tudor Hall students achieve outstanding A-level results with girls achieving excellent outcomes and going on to a range of top universities in the UK and overseas, including Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Newcastle and York. In 2024 destinations included Oxford University (Classics), and the prestigious (and fiendishly difficult to get into) Jimmy Choo Academy.
Head Teacher’s Philosophy
Tudor Hall is exceptional and unique in so many ways. It is a thriving, and vibrant, full boarding school with an integrated day community, for girls aged 11 to 18. Around 90% of our pupils board, making for a fully immersive school life, a supportive community and connections made that form lifelong friendships.
Academic excellence is achieved through a wide-ranging curriculum that enables girls to broaden their horizons, exceed their potential and provides the foundation for them to speak their minds, take intellectual risks and believe that anything is possible – aligning with our adoption of the High Performance Learning accreditation. Our Aim Higher programme affords all the girls a range of academic opportunities beyond the classroom, allowing them to pursue their intellectual curiosity whilst developing psychological and physical resilience. The girls are ambitious and determined to make the most of the many opportunities in school and further afield. At Tudor, pupils are selected not just on their academic ability but also on their personal strengths and character. Having grown up in an environment where their individual interests and talents are nurtured, girls emerge as poised, confident and articulate young women.
Since joining Tudor Hall in 2022, I have been struck by the way in which the whole community lives out the school motto ‘Habeo ut dem’, I have that I may give. There is genuine care for those within the school, as well as those beyond. The girls are impressive in their articulation of why Tudor is so special to them; being part of such a close community enables girls to be comfortable in their own skin and empowers them with everything they need to flourish in life.
I extend a warm invitation to you and your daughter to visit us at Tudor Hall and experience this extraordinary school community for yourself.
Outstanding Characteristics
We are experts in all-girl boarding and education; we have been tailoring everything we do to optimise girls’ experience and outcomes for 175 years. Surrounded by acres of parkland in rural Oxfordshire, but only 1 hour from London and 25 minutes from Oxford, girls are safe and secure – in every sense of the words – to be themselves and find their place in the world.
Our boarding houses are based around year groups meaning that, after Years 7 and 8 (in which they are members of our cosy Todd House, complete with its own garden and play area for our youngest girls), all the girls live together in a house dedicated to their age group and move up together each year (from Year 9 to Upper Sixth). Not only does this form an incredibly strong bond across the year, and allows individuals to ‘find their tribe’ among girls of their own age, but it means that each Housemistress and their pastoral team are experts in the needs and challenges that girls meet at each age, allowing the structure and priorities of each House to support every girl.
