School Overview
Milton Abbey was founded in the 1950’s as a forward looking school that embraced tradition, yet celebrated individuality and innovation. These values still hold strong today. The school, at its very core, promotes excellence, hard work, industry and endeavour, celebrating success in whatever form it may come. No one is overlooked. Despite it being smaller than other schools, the school encourages all pupils to have big ambitions, big achievements, and big hearts.
The Abbey is the beating heart of school life. Christian values of care, forgiveness and compassion form the backbone of everything that is done at the school.
The curriculum is a traditional one, where pupils study a myriad of different subjects in the third form prior to specialising in the fourth and fifth year in preparation for GCSE exams. The school also successfully introduced vocational qualifications, and teaches countryside management, hospitality and horse management on top of traditional A Levels, such as physics, modern and foreign languages, and humanities. The school actively encourages pupils to stretch themselves academically. A number of pupils are supported by an excellent learning support department, which aids and assists pupils, enabling them to reach standards which they did not think possible.
Milton Abbey is divided into House groups – Athelstan, Bancks, Damer, Hambro, Middleton and Tregonwell, each of which is run by a Housemaster or Housemistress (HSM). Each House is led by a Head of House. There are competitive events between Houses, which include sport, music and drama.
The school has a full collection of outdoor pursuits and activities. On top of the traditional termly games of rugby, hockey, cricket, netball, rounders and tennis, pupils area able to pursue a number of things that other schools cannot offer, such as beagling and ferretting. The school has a 25m indoor pool, squash courts, a clay pigeon shoot, an indoor rifle range and its own pheasant shoot.
With a traditional approach firmly rooted in the countryside, the school is developing its own farm project, keeps pigs and rears pheasants for its two shooting days. The entire school sits down to a formal meal twice a year with food that is solely produced from its own grounds.
The school is led by the Headmaster, Gareth Doodes, and the Senior Management Team (SMT). The SMT comprises of the Deputy Head (Chris Staley), the Assistant Heads (Mike Sharp – Academic, Simon Kibler – Pastoral, Hugo Mieville – Activities), the Finance Director (Sheila Way) and the Admissions Manager (Diana Morant).