Basic Information & Location
St Clare’s, Oxford was founded in 1952 with a mission to advance international education and understanding. It’s a co-educational day and residential sixth form college focusing on IB Diploma Program. The school is located at the North Oxford Conservation Area, one kilometre from the centre of the city, which occupies 27 Victorian and Edwardian houses to which purpose-built facilities have been added. Recent developments have included a new art studio, mathematics classrooms, and science laboratories, plus additional top-quality accommodation in award-winning buildings within the school’s gardens and grounds.
Academic Development
St Clare’s, Oxford provides a Pre-IB course which is an excellent preparation for the full International Baccalaureate Diploma. Having offered the IB Diploma for over 40 years, the school offers an especially wide range of subjects at higher and standard level, over 50 different nationalities are represented on the IB programme alone. The college also runs a highly successful IB Institute providing summer introductory courses for students about to start the IB worldwide. In May 2017, the school achieved an average points score of 36 with a pass rate of 97%, which compares very favourably to the world average scores of 30 with a pass rate of 79%. Four students gained the maximum 45 points, a grade achieved by only 0.2% of students world wide.
Pastoral Care & Boarding
The school has 16 of own college residential houses for students on each different course. Residences are of high standard, equipped with tennis courts, football field, swimming pool, swings and playground nearby. All of the residences are within walking distance of the campus for lessons, meals, meetings with teachers and activities. Students live in houses on campus and are taken care by wardens who live in the houses. They eat all their meals in the main dining room and when on trips or excursions, the school provides them with picnic lunches. Adult students have the choice of self-catering houses with kitchens. Even though students can cook their own meals, when at classes Monday to Friday, most have lunch in the dining room. Each student is paired with a member of staff who oversees all aspects of their life here. Each Personal Tutor takes responsibility for the oversight of approximately 12 students, with responsibility extends to academic and non-academic aspects of students’ lives and includes residential life as well as other aspects of the College outside the classroom. Students will meet with their Personal Tutors each week. Personal Tutors will organise outings for their groups, encouraging mixing of nationalities.
Extracurricular & personal development
Concerned with the College’s mission of promoting international education and understanding, the extracurricular programme is one of three core subjects of the International Baccalaureate Diploma called Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS). Both static and active activities are provided to ensure an all-round development of students. With so many options out there, all students should be able to find an extracurricular that they are interested in and can develop a passion for, such as Art Club, Animals Rights Action Group, Basketball Team, Cooking Class and so on.
