WHAT? WHERE?

An academic powerhouse of an independent girls’ day school in Abingdon, south Oxfordshire, St Helen and St Katharine offers campus-style education in a range of elegant Edwardian and modern buildings across its neat 22-acre site. The school takes girls from 9 – 18 years old across four departments – Junior (9-11 years); Lower (11-13 years); Middle (13-16 years); and Sixth Form (16-18 years), teaching 725 pupils in total in average class sizes of 24, though Sixth Form class numbers are more bespoke depending on subject.

Founded in 1903 on Christian principles and still maintaining weekly Chapel (though welcoming of all religions, or none), St Helen and St Katharine is academically selective on entry. It describes itself as “a school for bright girls with enquiring minds” and it’s quite the scrap, with one place available for every two applicants.

FACILITIES

The acreage for a town centre school is generous and St Helen and St Katharine has made good use of it, with a series of savvy adds over the last 17 years across sports, arts and academics.

SPORTS

No half-hearted limbering up here, St Helen and St Katharine is ranked in the top 26 UK schools for sport nationally, in the top 4 girls’ schools for sport and is the top school for sport in Oxfordshire (as reported in School Sport Magazine 2024), with a swathe of 50+ students currently playing for county, regional or national teams. The Sports Centre, built in 2016, offers indoor hockey, netball and badminton, three lane cricket nets, basketball, and includes separate rooms for group spinning, ergo, weights/fitness and dance. Outside there are lacrosse pitches, six netball and tennis courts, sports fields, three lacrosse pitches and a sports pavilion at nearby Church Farm.  

Netball is the jewel in the crown at St Helen and St Katharine, with the U14 netball A-Team runners-up in two national tournaments (England Netball National Schools and Sisters n Sport) and U14, U16 and U19 teams making it to the the English Schools regional rounds. But there’s depth too, with the senior lacrosse team winning the National School Lacrosse Championships Division 2 cup; two pairs of tennis players coming runners-up in the U13 and U15 categories of the ISTA Championship; U16A and U18A hockey teams reaching 2nd place in the indoor hockey county finals; and U13 and U15 cricket teams making the national ECB Schools Indoor Cricket finals.

Mind-bendingly, one in seven St Helen’s pupils is currently competing for her county, region or country in sport, but if you’re wringing your hands at the sporting incompetence of your daughter, there’s a strong emphasis on participation and active lives for those more interested in just taking part. All girls take part in fitness and conditioning, and with over 70 sports clubs running each week – from fencing and equestrian to ballet and sailing – the school intends to find a sport your daughter will be interested in!

CREATIVE ARTS

Your daughter wants to be on the stage? Here, give her the choice of two! The Yolande Paterson Hall, with seating for 500+ and full stage, is used for concerts and large-scale drama productions as well as assemblies, while there’s also a 120-seater Studio Theatre for smaller scale performances. Drama is offered for both GSCE and A level, and there’s a steady stream of shows. There’s a weekly drama club and an annual Playwriting Competition – the winning play gets its inaugural performance as a lunchtime performance.

In terms of music, any school with its own chapel, like St Helen and St Katharine, is naturally inclined to invest in its choirs, and four school teams made the semi-finals of the Pro Corda chamber music Festival 2022.

Around 42%* of pupils take individual music lessons at the school which is a little lower than I expected, but nevertheless there’s an array of orchestras, chamber groups, rock bands, open mic sessions and choirs, and even a Pop Band Club. There’s a music technology room and a seminar space, along with several performance spaces throughout the school, plus 15 general music practice rooms.

GENERAL

The red carpet and heraldry have been in force for the Benedict Building, the brand new Sixth Form centre that makes up one face of an elegant modern quad. There are nine classrooms, various study spaces, a higher education library, lecture and performance hall, a café and a large common room, all modular sofas, huge kitchen, tasteful muted colours, and the school motto ‘Per Severa’ flashed up in neon.

Other facilities worth oohing about are the library (housing 22,000 books and counting), the 125-seat lecture theatre, the café, a Science Centre with 12 labs (built 2014), a 3D Design Centre (built 2015) with dedicated space for Ceramics and DT, and a recording studio where a surprisingly interesting podcast is recorded – take a listen!   

ACADEMICS

They’ll have you at A*. There’s no arguing with the grades here, it’s an immensely high-achieving school. In 2024, 65.5% of pupils gained grades 9-8 at GCSE and 85.5% gained grades 9-7. Just think about that for a second! At A-level, 29.9% gained A*, 63.7% gained A*-A, and 91.7% gained A*-B. The vast majority of leavers go to their first choice university – for 2024 that included students going off to study Medical Biosciences at London Imperial, Law at LSE and Chemistry with Maths at UCL.

With grades like this, you can see why there’s a selection process; clever but cruising won’t cut it here, so if your child has the ability but not the drive, perform a handbrake turn now. STEM is strongly promoted at St Helen and St Katharine – an impressive number of 2024’s leavers chose a STEM-related university course, including Physics, Dentistry, Civil Engineering and Computer Science. Languages are another strong suit, offering four modern languages: French, Spanish, German, Mandarin – plus Latin and Greek.

PASTORAL CARE 

Form tutors are at the centre of the pastoral system here (they see their pupils twice a day), supported by the Chaplain, three on-site counsellors and the health centre team. Various clubs including TakeTime Meditations and yoga. Sixth Formers are trained in safeguarding, listening and counselling to be an extra support for younger students. There are regular student surveys – a recent example being on diversity and inclusivity – where the students are involved in acting on the outcome. To pastorally support pupils, parents and staff, a recent addition has been the Wellbeing Hub resource – everything from accessing teentips.co.uk for the pupils (think tips, self-care, Q&As etc) to specialist support, webinars and resources for parents and teachers.

THE HEAD 

Rebecca Dougall has been head for 10 years, having previously been headmistress at Royal High School Bath GDST, so she has presided over a long period of spending and success. Gregarious but passionate about girls’ education, her informal mantra for the type of pupils who excel at St Helen’s “and and and”– i.e. joining, trying, working, and getting involved more rather than less – could well be her own. She recently announced her retirement and will leaving at the end of this school year, when Sarah Rollings will be taking over the helm.

Sarah has been headmistress at Heathfield School Ascot, a senior girls’ school in Berkshire, since 2021. She’s also Chair of the ISC Cross Association Sports Committee and the GSA Sports & Wellness Committee, is an experienced Governor and ISI Inspector, and has studied education extensively with a first-class degree from Brunel University in Secondary Education and an MA in Educational Leadership and Management just some of the feathers in her cap. She previously served as Director of Sport at St Helen and St Katharine from 2011–2017 so she has a knowledge and fondness for the school already. I’ll update you more on Sarah and her plans once she has her feet under the table.

QUIRKS 

Quite a few actually. The pupils are known as ‘Helkats’, and there are 28 elected Prefects who wear boaters and distinctive blazers. The school has its own museum, and perhaps more interestingly also its own student laureate, who marks key moments at the school or the outside world with poetry.

St Katharine’s Day sounds like a lot of fun – an annual charity fundraising day that includes a 2p race where form groups race to see how quickly they can lay repeating patterns of 2p pieces on a netball court, as well as a lacrosse match against Abingdon School. And there’s a sweet tradition after the final assembly of the academic year in summer – the pupils form a huge circle in the Quad around the Sixth Form leavers and do the hokey-cokey. Seriously, that’s what it’s all about (I’ll get my coat).

WRAP AROUND CARE  

From September 2023, wrap-around care was extended from 7.30am-6pm. Usual drop-off is from 8am, with the library open for supervised prep until 5.30pm, and there are 100+ clubs and societies on the spin each week, many before or after school.

ISI REPORT 

The latest ISI report is from February 2022 and it’s highly flattering, with a small caveat of allowing the super-bright to extend further (jeez, is that even possible?).

MOBILE PHONE POLICY 

Younger pupils are “liberated” from mobile phones during the day, with phones handed in during morning registration and returned at the end of the day. Students from Y11 upwards have access to their phones but are encouraged to keep usage to a minimum.

TRANSPORT 

A joint bus service with Abingdon services schools across six counties – Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire. See the routes here.

SEND

The school has a Head of Learning Support and additional lessons are in small groups or one-to-one within the department. Roughly 12% of the cohort has some special educational needs and/or disability.  

FEES 

Termly tuition fees of £8,052 (inclusive of VAT) feels like a cute academic investment when exam results this good pop out the other end, and even better when it includes stationery, most text books, swimming, games and supervised prep and study sessions. (Lunch is an additional £360 per term). There are means-tested bursaries from 20–100% of fees from Year 7 and transformational bursaries in Sixth Form – these cover 100% of school fees as well as additional costs such as school bus transport and subject-related enrichment activities.

WORD ON THE GROUND 

The word is… busy! The pupils are encouraged to get stuck in here and stretch themselves – for example, the Sixth Formers showing me around told me that anyone here who wants to apply for Oxbridge is given the support to have a go, rather than the school just cherry picking the dead certs. The teachers are regarded by parents and pupils to be passionate about their subjects.

THE MUDDY VERDICT 

Good for: If your daughter is clever, a ‘doer’ and keen to grab every opportunity available, she’ll be in heaven here. STEM and sport are sweet spots although it will suit all-rounders too – the school has depth across the board. The location in Abingdon town and the proximity to the centre of Oxford with all its charms and challenges means the girls here avoid being in an impenetrable public school ‘bubble’.

Not for: Self-motivation and a desire to progress is key at St Helen and St Katharine – girls thinking to cruise their way through school might want their education served at a slower pace.

Want to see for yourself? Be my guest! The Headmistress’ Breakfast is a small open morning, starting at 10am, where you can meet the head and senior staff followed by a tour. The next dates (for all entry points) are Thurs 13 March and Thurs 26 June 2025. The application deadline for Sixth Form entry in September 2025 is 3 March. Find more info and book here. To arrange a family visit, contact the Admissions team at admissions@shsk.org.uk or call 01235 530593.

St Helen and St Katharine , Faringdon Rd, Abingdon OX14 1BE. Tel: 01235 530593.