Private Independent Day School for Boys 3 - 13 & Girls 3 - 7, Flexi-Boarding for Boys 8 - 13
Private Independent Day School for Boys 3 - 13 & Girls 3 - 7, Flexi-Boarding for Boys 8 - 13
Here you will find insightful articles written by CCCS Staff who explain a little more about we do, and why we do it the way that we do.
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Following Macbeth’s success as last year’s summer play, and the more recent Form 8 production of The Three Musketeers in French, it was only a matter of time before someone asked the question, why not give the boys real swords? Apparently, this is considered unwise, but Mrs Fairhurst found the next best thing: the British Fencing Core Coaching Programme.
Christ Church Meadow has always been a special place for me. I grew up and went to school in Oxford, living just off Abingdon Road. As a boy, I loved anything to do with sport, most specifically football – playing whenever I got the chance and following Oxford United home and away with my dad and brothers, something I still do to this day.
Within our Pre-Prep, we work hard to develop Creative, Curious, Collaborative, and Self-confident learners. We achieve this by taking a holistic approach, in which every child is known deeply, and their uniqueness celebrated and encouraged.
This term, our Friday afternoon enrichment programme for pupils in Forms 3–5 has included a popular Racket Ball club, run on our two on-site squash courts. Racket Ball has proven to be an excellent alternative to traditional squash for younger pupils and has been thoroughly enjoyed by all the boys taking part.
As your child progresses through the school, they will come across different types of assessment. Of course, as we are a selective school, your child will have done an assessment before they joined us – though if they were young when they arrived they may not have realised it! We do this to make sure that all the pupils here will be able to take advantage of what we have to offer.
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Science at CCCS is much more than a subject on the timetable and in this article, I hope to explain a bit about what goes on in Darwin, our science lab here at CCCS, and why I believe I have the best job in the school!
We are very fortunate to have a dedicated space for our prep pupils to start their journey as young scientists; this allows numerous opportunities for collaborative, investigative tasks that would not be possible in other settings.
I have always been a fan of the stars of early cinema. They took a brand-new technology and used it to combine what they knew already (in many cases, clowning) with new ideas, creating a whole new genre of creativity. Of course, for the first generation of cinema actors, it was not possible to synchronise pictures with sound – but if you watch their films you really don’t need it. They developed a method of acting in which they communicated everything they wanted to say through tight plotting, gestures and some wonderful facial expressions. There was also the new, and related, profession of being a cinema pianist or organist, who had to improvise music to accompany the film, often with added sound effects (literal “bells and whistles”) stuck to the top of the organ. Some silent movie stars stopped work in the 1930s, when sound arrived, but others kept going – and I love that even into the 1940s, Laurel and Hardy movies don’t really need the dialogue.
There is a particular kind of magic in the quiet hum of a library, and at our school, that magic is currently unfolding in real-time. The English Department is thrilled to announce the opening of our brand-new school library - a project that has been a labour of love and a testament to our commitment to fostering a lifelong passion for reading among our boys.
The embroidery club offers our children a calm and creative environment where they can learn a traditional craft while developing important learning skills. The club allows pupils to work at their own pace and enjoy the process of creating something by hand.
Every year, we enter every pupil in Forms 5-8 into a National Maths Challenge. The challenge
consists of problem solving questions, requiring the pupils to use their Mathematical skills and
knowledge to find the answers. Pupils work by themselves in test conditions. There is no
pressure involved, and we treat it as a fun activity rather than a formal examination.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the framework that we follow at CCCS in both our Nursery and Reception classes. It is used in England to set the standards for the learning, development, and care of children from birth to five years old, and applies to all Early Years settings, including nurseries, pre-schools, childminders, and Reception classes in schools.
In September 2024, the school introduced a new Enrichment Programme, inviting all pupils from Years 3–8 to choose activities to participate in during the final two lessons of each week. The programme has been hugely successful and has continued to evolve over the past year and a half.
