Pangbourne College

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Pangbourne College" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Pangbourne College
Navy blue and white
Publication	Pangbourne Colours Ensign
Former pupils	Old Pangbournians
Boat club
Website	www.pangbourne.com

Pangbourne College is a

The college was founded by

In addition to normal academic subjects, the college's curriculum included the teaching of seamanship and navigation, theoretical and practical, to O Level for all boys, and to Higher National Diploma (A Level equivalent) in Seamanship for cadets wishing to embark on a career in the Merchant Navy.

Originally catering to about 200 male "cadets" bound largely for service in the Merchant and Royal Navies, the school now has approximately 400 co-educational pupils, both day and boarding. It has a Christian ethos,^[1] takes a wide range of academic abilities and focuses on the development of the whole person, particularly including "courtesy and self-discipline", "supporting the success of others" and "aiming high".^[1] For most of its history, the college numbered on average around 200 cadets in any given year. Recently numbers have expanded to an average complement of around 400, due in part to the college becoming co-educational in 1996 and opening a junior house.

A number of naval traditions are maintained. The college holds a parade seven times a year,^[1] culminating on 'Founders Day' with the ceremony of "beat the retreat". While the title of "cadet" for pupils has fallen into disuse, pupils continue to wear naval uniform on a daily basis, including the traditional rank slides of a Royal Navy cadet. College argot reflects the nautical traditions, with "cabins" instead of study bedrooms, "gunrooms" instead of pupil common rooms, "galleys" instead of kitchens, and so on.^[1] A focus on water-borne sports, including rowing and sailing, remains a legacy of a nautical past.

Academic

Pangbourne takes students with a range of academic abilities, the majority of whom enter via

The Good Schools Guide describes Pangbourne as "A small, distinctive, grounded and family-oriented school that puts huge emphasis on self-discipline, teamwork and leadership. Caring and supportive, Pangbourne buzzes with activity and encourages every pupil to have a go."^[2] The college has a boarding culture with around forty per-cent of the pupils boarding on a full, weekly or part-week basis. An Independent Schools Inspectorate visit in November 2019 reported the college to be "excellent" in all nine of its categories.

Divisions

The boarding houses at Pangbourne are known as "divisions".^[3]

^{[citation needed]}

*Pupils aged from 11–13 years belong to Dunbar.

All of the divisions are named after ships operated at various times by the Devitt and Moore Line, and all contain roughly 60 pupils. Every pupil at Pangbourne is allocated to a boarding house when applying to Pangbourne whether he or she is a boarder or day pupil. Pangbourne does not use the system whereby scholars live in their own separate house, but instead chooses to integrate them into regular divisions. The divisions constantly compete against each other in sports and extra-curricular activities, ranging from debating and singing to running and marching. The division which has performed best at the end of the year is presented with the coveted Headmaster's Cup on Founder's Day. Each division is staffed by a housemaster or housemistress, assistant housemaster or mistress, a matron, and a number of house tutors. In addition to these, each division has a chief, one or more deputy chiefs, and a new entry cadet officer drawn from among the senior pupils.

Extracurricular activities

Sport

Pangbourne offers students a range of sports with professional coaching. The performance of the Pangbourne College Boat Club is exceptional.^[1] The school has won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup four times at the Henley Royal Regatta.^[4]

The college has a rugby club, with the first XV progressing to the latter stages of the

The college has a Combined Cadet Force contingent consisting of three sections: Royal Navy, Army and Royal Marines. In the year 2013-2014 13 pupils went to the Falkland Islands to complete their gold award expedition.

There is a marching band. Formed originally to provide fifes, drums and bugles to lead parades, it has now developed brass and wind sections as well, and performs outside the college for charity events. Each year it leads the Remembrance Sunday service parade through Pangbourne village.

The school has a new music centre. It has inaugurated the Pangbourne College piano festival, in which participating pupils come from all over the Home Counties and London to take part, using the pianos in its three recital halls. There is an annual Pangbourne College composers` competition.

Leadership and prefects

Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel

The Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel was opened by

The Memorial Chapel – which cost a total of £2.3 million and was opened in March 2000 by Her Majesty The Queen – seats 580 within the ground floor area and gallery; its design , which came about as a result of a nation-wide competition won by Crispin Wride Architectural Design Studio, is reminiscent of the shape of a ship – almond or 'mandorla' shaped – denoting hands 'cupped' in prayer. Natural light flows down the pale coloured inside walls from clear glass surrounding the curved roof and diffused through its focal feature at the north end – a memorial window with stained glass depicting the Falkland Islands within Christ's Cross surrounded by a lively sea in vibrant shades of blue, green, yellow and grey – designed by John Clark Visitors experience a feeling of calm and comfort within the body of the church and gallery area – created by the soft ash and neutral colours surrounding them. There are also some beautifully engraved clear glass panels within each of the main internal and external doors, which take them on a journey from the turbulence of war to the tranquillity of peace.

— About the Chapel, The Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel website

Each seat has been donated by an organisation or individual, and under each seat is a kneeler with the name of one of the Falklands` casualties.

The chapel was the winner of Private Eye's Sir Hugh Casson Award for the worst new building of the year in 2000, with the magazine's architecture critic, 'Piloti', describing it as ""so very like the Ruskin Library that its 'architects' are obviously shameless".^[6]

Notable Old Pangbournians

• Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell by Keith Waterhouse
  .
• Beverley Cross, playwright of Half a Sixpence, starring Tommy Steele, among many other productions, and late husband to actress Dame Maggie Smith.
• Patrick Derham, former headmaster of Westminster School
• Lord Mayor of the City of London, and also an elected member of the House of Lords
  , now sitting as Baron Evans.
• Gentleman Usher of the Purple Rod
  .
• Dazed & Confused
• Lieutenant Commander Roger Hill DSO DSC, destroyer captain and author
• Mike Hailwood MBE GM, motorcycle racer and 12 times Isle of Man TT champion.
• Patrick Hawes Resident composer and music teacher at Pangbourne College
• Colin Hodgkinson (RAF officer), partially disabled wartime fighter pilot
• Sir William Garth Morrison Kt CBE DL, former naval officer, former Chief Scout and late Lord Lieutenant of East Lothian.
• Rodney Pattisson MBE, yachtsman and twice Olympic gold medallist.
• Captain John Ridgway MBE, Special Air Service and Parachute Regiment officer, writer, yachtsman, first Atlantic rower (with Chay Blyth), and founder of Ardmore Adventure School.
• Ken Russell, film director and producer, perhaps best known for his film The Devils.
• Andrew "Bart" Simpson MBE, sailor, Olympic gold and silver medallist, and Americas Cup professional, who drowned in a sailing accident off California on 9 May 2013.
• Colonel David Smiley LVO OBE MC and Bar, World War II special forces and intelligence officer, Special Operations Executive and MI6 agent, author, and officer commanding the mounted escort at the Queen's Coronation; often considered to be one of John le Carré`s inspirations for George Smiley in his Tinker, Tailor series of spy novels.
• Frederick Treves awarded the BEM and the Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea as a 17-year-old merchant seaman during World War II. Subsequently, a successful actor.
• Richard Shuttleworth Wingfield-Digby, Dean of Peterborough
  , 1966–80.
• Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Southby-Tailyour OBE, Royal Marines officer, author, Yachtsman of the Year 1982.
• Tom Spencer, former Conservative MEP who became leader of the UK Conservative MEPs, and chairman of the EU Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee. He stood down in 1999.
• Nigel, Lord Vinson LVO, businessman and inventor, and former British Army officer.
• Young's Brewery
  , Wandsworth.
• The Hon Francis (Frank) Davies, multi-award-winning record producer.
• Lt Cdr Mike Cumberlege DSO & Bar, RD, Greek Medal of Honour, RNR, SOE – murdered in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1945.^[7]

Notes