Thank you for your interest in applying to Dame Alice Owen’s School. Though much of the information we have about our school is available on our website, we know you are busy so have put some key information here to help you understand who we are and what we do.
Our school was founded over 400 years ago by Dame Alice Owen, a remarkable philanthropist with an unusually modern vision for education. She established the first school in Islington and, as demand outstripped space, it moved to its current setting, in the Hertfordshire countryside, in 1976.
Today, Owen’s is an exciting place to work where “staff overwhelmingly feel well cared for” and behaviour is “exemplary.” [Ofsted December 2023] Ours is a school where teachers love talking about teaching and learning, where relationships between students and staff are positive and strong, and where we do what we can to keep workload manageable. We are never complacent; we are always looking for marginal gains in order to keep what we do reasonable, but exciting. It is the combination of interested students, dedicated staff, supportive parents, a rigorous and empathetic Governing Body and school leadership team (staff and student) which makes our school such a special place to be.
Dame Alice Owen’s School is a mixed, partially selective secondary school with approximately 1,440 students including over 400 in our vibrant and highly successful sixth form. Our school benefits from some of the most able students in the country. In the 2023 A level examinations; 60% of all A level grades were A*-A with 82% of grades being awarded A*-B. In GCSE examinations, students achieved an average Attainment 8 score of 71.2 and a Progress 8 score of 0.63 with 24% of all grades awarded at level 9 and 95% of students achieving 5 or more grades 9 – 4 including English and Maths. Many of our school leavers from Year 13 have offers from top universities to choose from, including an average of 24 places at Oxbridge each year.
We were delighted to be recognised as ‘The Sunday Times Regional School of the Decade’ in 2020 and the country’s highest ranking non-fully selective state school of the year many times over. Securing a place at Owen’s has been described as “winning the lottery” in the Good School Guide, “the golden ticket” in Tatler and Ofsted judged us “outstanding” in all categories in December 2023, with no areas for improvement.
If you’d like to come and join us, we would love to meet you and talk to you more. Please call to arrange a chat, if you would like to, or just send us your completed application pack. I look forward to meeting you.
Hannah Nemko, Headteacher
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