Magdalen College School is an independent school for boys located in Oxford, England. It was founded as part of Magdalen College, Oxford by William Waynflete in 1480. Image File history File links Magdalen_crest. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... This article is about the city of Oxford in England. ... Oxfordshire (abbreviated Oxon, from the Latinised form Oxonia) is a county in the South East of England, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... An independent school in the United Kingdom is a school that relies for all or most of its funding on non-governmental sources. ... William Waynflete (1395 - 1486), English Lord Chancellor and bishop of Winchester, was the son of Richard Pattene or Patyn, alias Barbour, of Wainfleet, Lincolnshire ( Reg, f. ... A public school, in current English, Welsh and Northern Ireland usage, is a (usually) prestigious independent school, for children usually between the ages of 11 or 13 and 18, which charges fees and is not financed by the state. ... This article is about the city of Oxford in England. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... College name Magdalen College Latin name Collegium Beatae Mariae Magdalenae Named after Mary Magdalene Established 1458 Sister college Magdalene College, Cambridge President Professor David Clary FRS JCR President Jessica Jones Undergraduates 395 MCR President Eloise Scotford Graduates 230 Location of Magdalen College within central Oxford , Homepage Boatclub Magdalen College (pronounced... William Waynflete (1395 - 1486), English Lord Chancellor and bishop of Winchester, was the son of Richard Pattene or Patyn, alias Barbour, of Wainfleet, Lincolnshire ( Reg, f. ... Events March 6 - Treaty of Toledo - Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain recognize African conquests of Afonso of Portugal and he cedes the Canary Islands to Spain Great standing on the Ugra river - Muscovy becomes independent from the Golden Horde. ...

Foundation

The School was originally founded by William Waynflete to educate the sixteen boy choristers of Magdalen College, Oxford who sang in the college's chapel, as well as other gifted local children of high academic achievement. Since then it has grown from its original pupil population of approximately 30 to over 660. In 1890 the school moved from its original location in Magdalen College itself to its present location just over Magdalen Bridge and opposite the college. The choristers are still official 'scholars' of the school along with other pupils who attain excellence in a particular field (Art, Music, Sport and Academia). College name Magdalen College Latin name Collegium Beatae Mariae Magdalenae Named after Mary Magdalene Established 1458 Sister college Magdalene College, Cambridge President Professor David Clary FRS JCR President Jessica Jones Undergraduates 395 MCR President Eloise Scotford Graduates 230 Location of Magdalen College within central Oxford , Homepage Boatclub Magdalen College (pronounced... Punting from the wrong end of the boat at Magdalen Bridge Magdalen Bridge spans the divided stream of the River Cherwell just to the east of the City of Oxford, and next to Magdalen College, whence it gets its name and pronunciation. ...

History

Magdalen College School was, from its foundation in 1480, based in the college itself (just over Magdalen Bridge). However, in the late 19th century the school detached itself, and was replanted across the river, using what is now the Junior section of the school as its entire school house. The school has moved on, and has spread across the road, and the Schoolhouse is now used for the Juniors (ages 7-11) whilst the school facilties across Cowley Place are for the Seniors (ages 11-18)

While in the intervening centuries it enjoyed mixed fortunes, today Magdalen has established a position amongst the UK's best academic schools and has around 660 pupils aged between 7 and 18. The school was named the UK's Independent School of the Year by the Sunday Times in 2004. The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ...

The new Sir Basil Blackwell library has been built recently, and a new canteen is planned, to be built within the next two years. Sir Basil Blackwell son of the founder of Blackwells bookshop in Oxford, which went on to become the Blackwells family publishing and bookshop empire, located on Broad Street in Oxford. ...

The Headmaster is called the Master (currently Mr. A.D. Halls - leaving his 10 year post soon after Christmas 2007). The next Master will be Dr. T.R. Hands, current Headmaster of The Portsmouth Grammar School. The Portsmouth Grammar School is a co-educational, selective, independent school located in Portsmouth, England. ...

The deputy head is called the Usher (currently Mr. S.D.A. Grifiths).

Junior School

The Junior School is the section of MCS for boys of ages seven to eleven (or years 3 to 6). Year 3 is called J1 and contains around 16 boys; Year 4 is J2 and contains approximately the same number; Year 5 is split into J3A and J3B and contains around 35 boys; while Year 6 is split into J4A and J4B and contains around 40 boys. The current head of the Junior School is Mr Matthew Coatsworth, while the deputy head is Mrs E. Stapleton.

Sport

Magdalen is a strong sporting school; teams fielded in rugby union, hockey, cricket and tennis have all met a degree of success, with the 1st XV in rugby last year winning nine out of ten matches played. There are also strong individual sportsmen in the school; sailing has recently experienced a surge in popularity and results have gone up, and the school rowing club is also very strong. For other uses, see Rugby (disambiguation). ... Hockey is any of a family of sports in which two teams compete by trying to maneuver a ball, or a hard, round disc called a puck, into the opponents net or goal, using a hockey stick. ... This article is about the sport. ... For other uses, see Tennis (disambiguation). ... For either of the songs named Sailing, see Sailing (song). ... A coxless pair which is a sweep-oar boat. ...

Boys' pastimes

During lunchbreak and morning breaks, boys frequently play in the central playground or Milham Ford, behind the main teaching block (formerly grass and now occupied by hockey / tennis courts). "The Spit", an island underneath Magdalen Bridge, is used during breaktimes by the nearby Junior School, and has a fenced grass area and a Playground with swings, slides, etc. Informal activities during breaktimes include Football, Cricket, etc, as well as Magdalen's 'traditional' game, Kingball. Punting from the wrong end of the boat at Magdalen Bridge Magdalen Bridge spans the divided stream of the River Cherwell just to the east of the City of Oxford, and next to Magdalen College, whence it gets its name and pronunciation. ... Combination playground structure for small children; slides, climbers (stairs in this case), playhouse A playground is an area designed for children to play freely. ... Magdalen College School or MCS is a boys independent day school currently located on the edge of central Oxford, England. ...

Magdalen has a longstanding culture of clubs and societies, frequently run and operated by boys, and some of which (such as the Computer Club) charge a small annual membership fee, the fees being used to fund club equipment and activities and in some cases (like that of the computer club) improve communal school resources. Such clubs include well-established, traditional clubs like those in other schools such as the Debating Society, Computer Club, Archaeological Society, and Choral Society (which, as a choir school, enjoys active participation). More esoteric clubs and societies include the well-established St. Thomas Moore Society and editorial of the School magazine, The Lily.

Newer additions to the Magdalen Roster of extra-curricular activities include the anime club, climbing club, model railway society, the wargaming society and Ultimate Frisbee. The fitness suite, part of the school's new buildings, is open some lunchtimes. Ultimate Frisbee is a competitive non-contact team sport played with a Frisbee or similar flying disc most commonly weighing 175 g. ...

A complete list of school clubs and societies, with meeting times, summaries, and masters-in-charge, is available on the School Website.

House System

The pastoral care at Magdalen College School is very important in the everyday life of the children. When they arrive at the school each child is placed into a house, which is chosen by where they live. This encourages children living in the same area as each other to get to know each other and to become good friends. The houses are as follows: Callendar, Chavasse, Leicester, Maltby, Walker-Dunn and Wilkinson-Blagden. Each house is divided into five different sections: Room 4, Room 3, Room 2 and Rooms 1a and 1b. In Room 4 the youngest boys of the 2^nd and 3^rd form are to be found, then in Room 3 the Lower 4^th and Upper 4^th boys are to be found, and some Upper 4^th boys and the 5^th form boys mix in Room 2. Finally in Rooms 1a and 1b the Lower 6^th and the Upper 6^th are split up between two separate rooms. In each of these houserooms there is a house tutor and Room 1a is usually run by the house master, who is the head of the house.

The different houses of Magdalen College School help keep up a healthy competitive atmosphere among the boys and the house tutors are there to talk to if the boys ever need any advice. The houses run inter-house competitions such as debating, football, darts and even singing.

Kingball

A Magdalen College School tradition, unique to the school is the game of Kingball. It was first played at Magdalen some time in the 19th Century, and although to some extent the rules are passed down from year to year, every new year that takes up the game usually adopts its own rules as well. The game has been actively played during breaktimes amongst pupils using a variety of courts involving parking spaces and paving stones, but in more recent years, the school has painted several standardised courts on the main school playground.

The game is played on a court that is very distinctly shaped. The ball (generally a tennis ball) is bounced around the court and the players progress up the shaped squares (although in fact none of them are square-shaped) until he is in the 'King' square. Then he serves and so the game progresses until he is eventually knocked off the 'King' square. The game is predominantly played by younger boys, ranging from 8-13 years old. However, whenever boys from this age range vacate the courts and there are no tutors to tell them otherwise, older boys enjoy to play the unique "sport". The seven squares are, in order of descending rank: King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Lord, Servant and Rabies. If the court has been filled up then the people waiting to play must wait outside the rabies square. These players are called slaves.

The correct rules of Kingball are as follows:

1. After one bounce, a player has to palm the ball into his own square before it lands in an opponent's; 2. After two bounces, the ball must be hit directly into an opponent's square, without bouncing. 3. After three bounces, the ball must be kicked into an opponent's square without bouncing. 4. On the fourth bounce or failure to comply with the above rules, a player is demoted to the lowest available square (or court-side if no squares are available) and all other players who were previously below that player in the hierarchy move up a square, one step closer to becoming king.

Any game that is played on the Kingball courts that does not adhere to these rules is not Kingball.

In the last few years the game has lost its true spirit at MCS with younger boys changing the rules to make it easier. When the game was played in the late 1970s and early 1980s the only lawful play was that identified at (1) above. If a player could not lawfully play the ball after the first bounce in his square (and at that time the squares were indeed square-shaped and measured about 1.5 to 2 metres from corner to corner) then he was demoted. Also at this time,the names of the squares were not fixed - save for the King square - although frequent references to Queen, Jack, 10 and so on (as per a suit in a pack of cards) were made informally. There was no fixed number of squares although the normal number was 6 (in a 3x2 formation); 8 was not infrequent and larger numbers could be chosen to avoid long queues of those described above as 'slaves'.

The service is played by palming the ball (having thrown it up into the air) into one's own square so as to bounce in another's square. The occupant of that square then plays as above.

School Songs

The school has had many famous musicians over time. There are many songs dedicated to the school by such past pupils with the school hymn being one of them, entitled "Miles Christi".The other school hymn is "The Lilies of the Field", which is sung at the Remembrance service every November, and at the Commemoration service at the end of the school year. The 'House singing' Competition has recently become an annual school event, in which the various houses of the school compete against each other in the form of singing. The most recent victors were the house of Callender, who sang 'Don't Stop Me Now' to win the whole-house section with 16 year old Max Schofield supporting on solo Guitar, and the houses of Walker-Dunn and Wilkinson Blagden who sang My Evaline and Sweet and Low respectively in four-part Barbershop harmony and full 12 man choir, although Walker-Dunn were the overall winners, having got a higher score in the full group. Dont Stop Me Now ( ) is a 1979 hit single by Queen, from their 1978 album Jazz. ... Alternate cover Cover of 2004 double-CD deluxe edition Weezer, often referred to as The Blue Album, is the debut album by the band Weezer, originally released on May 10, 1994. ... The film starred William Garwood Sweet and Low was a 1914 American silent short film directed by William Desmond Taylor starring William Garwood Harry von Meter and Vivian Rich. ... A traditional musical style, see Barbershop music A 2002 motion picture, see Barbershop (movie) A place where barbers work, see Barbershop (hair) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Bibliography

Several books over the years have been written about the school. These include:

• Stanier, R.S. Magdalen School (Blackwell 1958)
• Clarke, D.L.L. Magdalen School: Five Hundred Years on (Blackwell 1980)
• Hey, Colin Magdalen Schooldays 1917-1924 (Senecio 1977)
• Orme, Nicholas Education in Early Tudor England: Magdalen College Oxford and Its School, 1480-1540 (Magdalen College 1988)

As an interesting addition to the above list, the novel North by long-serving former teacher Brian Martin (Macmillan New Writing 2006) is widely acknowledged to be set in the school, although it is not mentioned by name. The main character, an 'eminently shaggable' Head of History never without her complement of fake tan, is a very clear example of the similarities, although despite rumours to the contrary, the titular "North" appears to be a fictional compound of several old boys (he notably conducts an affair with the teacher). Another novel which is clearly based on a fictional version of the school is The Singing Time by Maida Stanier, wife of a former Master (Michael Joseph, 1975) Nicholas Orme is a British historian specialising in the Middle Ages and Tudor periods, with a particular interest in the history of children, and ecclesiastical history, in the South West of England. ...

Combined Cadet Force

The Magdalen College School Combined Cadet Force (MCS CCF) is divided up into four sections: Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and a Signals Corps open only to boys in the 6th form. The Combined Cadet Force (CCF) is a Ministry of Defence sponsored youth organisation in the United Kingdom. ...

The CCF is primarily reserved for boys in the 5th and 6th forms, although recent addition of 'after-school' CCF activities for boys from 13 and above have added to a longstanding tradition of permitting boys from the fourth forms to attend annual camps.

The CCF gives boys the opportunity to experience sailing, shooting, flying, infantry tactics and more of the like.

Tragedy

On Tuesday 20th March 2007, Dr David Brunton head of media studies and an English teacher at the school was found dead at the base of St Mary the Virgin Church tower in Radcliffe Square^[1], Oxford. His death was recorded as suicide.

Notable Old Boys

Old boys are called Old Waynfletes (OWs) after the founder.

Roughly in chronological order:

• St Thomas More (disputed) — Roman Catholic Martyr
• William Tyndale — first translator of the Bible into English
• Cardinal Wolsey (as Master) — Henry VIII's closest adviser
• John Foxe — martyrologist
• Sir Basil Blackwell — bookseller
• Noel Chavasse — one of three men to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice
• Ivor Novello — singer/songwriter
• John Caird — director of Les Miserables
• Christopher Peacocke — eminent philosopher
• Nigel Starmer-Smith — BBC rugby correspondent
• Jim Rosenthal — TV sports commentator
• Adam Lively — contemporary novelist
• Tim Hunt — Nobel Prize winner and scientist
• Wayne Masterson — scientist
• Sam Mendes — Oscar-winning film and stage director, and husband of Kate Winslet
• Guy Browning - humorous writer and business guru
• Ben Goldacre — journalist
• Daniel Sandford — BBC News Home Affairs Correspondent
• Julian Opie - Modern Artist
• William Edward Sherwood (Master and boy) - Mayor of Oxford 1913/14 and 1914/15
• Jonathan Bielby - Director of music at Wakefield Cathedral
• Ralph Man - Captain of the world's largest ship, the Knock Nevis
• Jeremy R. Knowles - Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Harvard University

Portrait of Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478–6 July 1535), posthumously known also as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, writer, and politician. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tyndale,Tindall or Tyndall) (ca. ... Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c. ... “Henry VIII” redirects here. ... John Foxe, line engraving by George Glover, first published in the 1641 edition of Actes and Monuments John Foxe (1516–April 8, 1587) is remembered as the author of the famous Foxes Book of Martyrs. ... Sir Basil Blackwell son of the founder of Blackwells bookshop in Oxford, which went on to become the Blackwells family publishing and bookshop empire, located on Broad Street in Oxford. ... Noel Godfrey Chavasse (VC and bar, MC) (November 9, 1884–August 4, 1917) was a British soldier who is one of only three people to be awarded a Victoria Cross twice. ... For other uses, see Victoria Cross (disambiguation). ... Ivor Novello David Ivor Davies (January 15, 1893 – March 6, 1951), better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the early 20th century. ... John Caird (1820 - 1898), theologian, born at Greenock and educated at Glasgow, entered the Church of Scotland, of which he became one of the most eloquent preachers. ... Les Misérables is an 1862 novel by the famous French novelist Victor Hugo, set in the Parisian underworld. ... Christopher Arthur Bruce Rosen Peacocke (born 22 May 1950) is a philosopher especially active on questions in the philosophy of mind. ... Nigel Starmer-Smith is a British rugby union journalist and commentator. ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... Jim Rosenthal (born 6 November 1947) is a sports presenter on British television. ... Adam Lively (1961-) is a British novelist. ... Dr. Richard Timothy (Tim) Hunt (b. ... The Nobel Prize (Swedish: ) was established in Alfred Nobels will in 1895, and it was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. ... Wayne Masterson Phd (born 1959 died 1991) was a British scientist who made a breakthrough in research into sleeping sickness. ... Sam Mendes Samuel Alexander Mendes, CBE (born August 1, 1965) is an English stage and film director born in Reading, Berkshire, England. ... Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born October 5, 1975) is a five time Academy Award-nominated Emmy Award-nominated BAFTA, Grammy and Screen Actors Guild Award winning English actress. ... Guy Browning (born 1964) is a humorist and after-dinner speaker. ... Ben Goldacres humourous byline photo Ben Goldacre is an London-based British journalist and doctor. ... Daniel Sandford (born 1882; died 1972) was an officer in the British Army. ... Julian Opie (born 1958) is a leading contemporary English artist, who uses computerised imagery. ... The Knock Nevis is a Norwegian owned supertanker, formerly known as Seawise Giant, Happy Giant, and Jahre Viking. ... Jeremy Randall Knowles, CBE (1935-) is a Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, was Dean of the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1991 to 2002. ...

Footnotes

External links

• Magdalen College School website
• ISI inspection report
• A history of the choristers of Magdalen College School, Oxford