St. Ronan's School

St. Ronan's School is an independent co-educational preparatory school for boys and girls from 2½ to 13 years located near Hawkhurst in Kent, England. It currently has about 150 boys and 100 girls, all of them day pupils, although boarding is available from time to time. The present headmaster is William Trelawny-Vernon, who was previously a housemaster at Stowe School.

History

The school was founded in 1883 and was originally located in Worthing. During the Second World War, the school was evacuated to Bicton Park, but then moved to its present location in Tongswood House.

The house was remodelled in the late 19th century for William Cotterill, of a mercantile family from the City of London. Tongswood later belonged to Charles Eugene Gunther (died 1931), head of the Liebzig Extract of Meat Company which later became known as OXO, who was Lord Lieutenant of Kent in 1926. Tongswood was sold in 1935 to W B Harris, who bought it with the sole purpose of housing Saint Ronan's School.

Sir John Vassar-Smith, Bt., was headmaster of the school for a long period until his retirement in 1997. He was succeeded by Edward Yeats-Brown, who in turn was succeeded by the present headmaster.

Classes

The school is divided into two parts: Pre-Prep and Prep. The Prep School contains Year 3, i.e. 8 year olds to Year 8, 13 year olds.

Originally, each class tended to contain a mixture of ages since advancement was based most of all on academic ability. From 2004 onwards pupils have advanced in academic year groups.

Like many prep schools, the classes are named in an unusual manner:Year 3 - Class IIYear 4 - Class IYear 5 - ShellYear 6 - MidwayYear 7 - UpperYear 8 - Schol (for candidates sitting academic scholarships to public schools) and C.E. (for candidates sitting Common Entrance examinations).

External links

* [http://www.saintronans.co.uk/ Official site]