St Andrew's School is an independentpreparatory school in the hamlet of Buckhold, near Pangbourne, Berkshire, England. Together with its 'Pre-Prep – Early Years' department, the school educates girls and boys aged between three and thirteen. In 2011, there were 266 children at the school, of whom 155 were boys and 111 were girls. The school has a Christian ethos, and its chapel services are reported to be "broadly Anglican in style". The most important religious event of the school year is the Advent Carol Service, which because of the numbers attending is held not at the school but in the larger chapel of nearby Bradfield College. Scholarships are awarded to some children above the age of eleven, based on merit. St Andrew's has a School Council to involve its children in decisions affecting them. In March 2011 an Independent Schools Inspectorate report endorsed the school's success.
History
The school was founded in 1934 as a boarding school for boys, and consisted of just two staff and eight boys. Historically, as the school grew, boys would leave to go onto schools such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester, however its ties with these schools slowly deteriorated after it first admitted girls in 1971, going on to become fully co-educational. The school's main building is a listed VictorianGothiccountry house called 'Buckhold', designed by Alfred Waterhouse set in fifty-four acres of woods and playing fields.
Following her family's return from Amman in 1986, Catherine Middleton was enrolled at St Andrew's. Middleton boarded part-weekly at the school in her later years. It was at St Andrew's in 1991 that Middleton first saw her future husband Prince William when he was part of a Ludgrove Schoolhockey team that came to play a match at Middleton's school.
The school today
Now consisting of just under three-hundred pupils, the school is fully co-educational with a range of facilities including newly refurbished boarding houses, three science laboratories, music school, art studio and carpentry workshop, and a private chapel. The school also boasts extensive sporting facilities such as a 25-metre pool, all-weather astro playing field, sports hall, climbing wall, 9 hole golf course, 3 tennis courts and multiple rugby/football/cricket/lacrosse pitches. Although boarding houses are strictly single sex, pupils are divided up into four co-ed houses called 'sections'. These sections compete in both academic and extra-curricular competitions such as sports, singing and the hallowed 'progressive games'.
Notable former pupils
Former students of the school are called "Old St Andrew's", and there is an OSA Association.
