LD: Hello Mr. Bird, thank you for inviting me back to City of London school. It is always a pleasure, and a great excuse to take advantage of your deceivingly large facilities and phenomenal location.
AB: Yes, you don’t realise how big it is from the outside. The building stretches over 5 levels, but as you walk past it on St Peter’s Hill you only see 3 of those. So there really is more to it than meets the eye! We are housing 930 boys, so it’s perhaps no surprise that the site is significant. The location, on the other hand, is more obvious at first sight: we are very lucky to be able to draw on the inspiration of some of the UK’s most significant landmarks to enhance and enrich the education that we offer.
Within this Tardis of a school you house numerous classrooms, science labs, libraries, theatres, music facilities, playground, squash courts, swimming pools, and dining rooms—have I missed anything?
That covers most of it. We have a wonderful Great Hall, with a very substantial organ, and strength and conditioning suite as well. Outside, alongside a dedicated playground, we also have a substantial astro which is used at break time but also allows some outdoor onsite sports as well.
You also have extra sports facilities, is that correct?
Yes, we have off-site sports facilities in Grove Park, so all the boys up to and including Year 10 go down there for one afternoon a week. From Year 11 onwards, they have slightly more choice and we run a games option both onsite and offsite.
What is the process of entry into the school?
It’s similar for both 10+ and 11+, consisting of paper-based assessments in maths, English and reasoning (VR and NVR) which are sat here in school. These assessments are followed by an interview. The process takes place in the January before the September in which the boys join us.
We also still have a significant 13+ intake, and, in line with most other London schools, that is done via the ISEB Common Pre-Test, which the boys sit in their current school in the November of Year 6. This is followed up with a visit to the School in the January, which includes an interview. As always, the report from the boy’s current school is also an important part of the process.
I am very familiar with the bursary facilities you provide at City and the many charities that you sponsor. Could you tell me a little more about this please?
Yes, there’s a very strong charitable ethos at the heart of the School, which dates right back to the School’s foundation. A really nice reflection of this is what the boys do themselves. Every year, a Charity Committee made up of boys in Year 12 puts forward four charities for the boys to vote on; the chosen charity then gets all the School’s fundraising over the next twelve months.
A nice reflection of this is what the boys do themselves, and one of the things I really love about the school actually, we have a charitable committee in Year 12, and they put forward each year 4 charities that they wish to support, and then they elect one charity that all the fundraising over the next 12 months goes towards.
We raise really meaningful money during that 12 months. Back in September, we had an assembly where we presented a cheque for £84,000 to Amref Health Africa, a charity that supports women’s health. This year, the charity elected by the boys was Tiny Tickers, which spreads awareness of congenital heart disease amongst infants.
You asked about bursaries, and obviously that’s central to what we do, and something that I am very committed to. Currently, we have 25% of the boys in the school with some sort of fee remission, and 10% of the boys who joined us in Year 7 in September don’t pay anything at all. The decision was also made two years ago to award all fee remission on a means-tested basis. Scholarships exist as prizes, but we put all of our funding for fee remission into bursaries, to ensure that the education we provide is as broadly accessible as possible.
The school has an amazing energy about it. Would you say this was due to the diversity of the boys?
Yes, undoubtedly. I think that the bursary programme is a very significant part of that. I think the fact that we are right in the middle of London also means that we attract boys from all across London. We don’t have an obvious residential base nearby; instead, boys travel here from all part of the city, and that creates a wonderfully diverse pupil body, which really enriches the education and helps to define our ethos.
You also run a wonderful alumni programme, how does this work?
Yes, we have a very active and supportive alumni association, and we also have our own alumni office on-site, which runs a programme of events for alumni, ensuring that they remain engaged with the school after they leave. In fact, tomorrow night we have our carol service in temple church and there are reunion drinks for last year’s leavers after that.
Your location definitely affords you great opportunities in some of London’s best venues.
Our location certainly helps us to attract the most fantastic range of speakers; it also means that we can run a wonderful programme of educational trips and visits, whilst also undertaking increasing amounts of partnership work with City of London School for Girls and the City family of schools. Undoubtedly, our location provides us with ample opportunity for the boys to engage meaningfully with the society of which they are a part.
Do all boys enter Russell Group Universities, Oxford or Cambridge after City? Also, what are the most desired A level options chosen by City boys?
I wouldn’t say or think we have a particular strength in one academic year rather than another: indeed, I am committed to ensuring that boys can be equally supported, stretched and challenged across the board. Maths, science and economics are very popular at A-level, but there are very healthy numbers doing other subjects as well. I am delighted that the languages attract significant numbers here (with nine offers from Oxford and Cambridge for modern languages alone this year), and that increasing numbers are undertaking creative subjects at A-level, such as art.
As an academic school, it’s perhaps no surprise that most of our boys leave us for university, and 41 of our boys secured offers from Oxford and Cambridge this year. But, as we develop our curriculum, we are also very conscious of the sorts of skills that employers want and need—and these go beyond excellent grades.
Are you seeing an increase of boys opting for US universities?
We have a substantial minority who will look at this, and a large handful will go to the US every year. We already know that boys in our current Senior 6th will be progressing to Princeton and Dartmouth.
And finally, could you describe a City boy?
I’m not interested in creating a City of London school “type”. We shouldn’t be in the business of taking boys when they join us and seeking to ensure that they fit into some sort of “model”.
Our job is to enable them to develop as the best version of themselves, and—as we talked about earlier—the diversity inherent in our boys is one of the major strengths of the school’s ethos. That said, I would hope that two unifying elements of City boys are an enthusiasm for learning, both inside and outside the classroom, and an unwavering commitment to the principle of mutual respect.
Thank you.
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