A top private school in Oxford which educated Utopia author Thomas More is to go fully co-educational for the first time in its 546-year-old history.
Magdalen College School (MSC), Oxford, which charges £28,000-a-year, plans to admit girls into all year groups beginning next year.
The school said it ‘felt like the right time to make this change’ having previously starting welcoming girls to the sixth form in 2010.
The move, which will be seen as a shift towards modernity, follows a number of other schools making similar moves.
Heads in the sector have in the past privately noted how admitting girls can have a positive effect on boys’ attitude.
MSC was founded in 1480 as a ‘song school’ and department of Magdalen College, Oxford, and it continues to educate the 16 boy choristers of Magdalen Chapel Choir.
Former pupils include St Thomas More, who penned his masterpiece Utopia in 1516 and was beheaded for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England.
Others include Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, and more recently Nobel Prize Winner Sir Tim Hunt and film director Sam Mendes.
A top private school in Oxford which educated Utopia author Thomas More (pictured) is to go fully co-educational for the first time in its 546-year-old history
Magdalen College School, Oxford (aerial view pictured), which charges £28,000-a-year, plans to admit girls into all year groups beginning next year
The school said it ‘felt like the right time to make this change’ having previously starting welcoming girls to the sixth form in 2010 (pictured: headteacher Helen Pike)
Earlier this term it announced 43 pupils received Oxbridge offers.
A spokesman said: ‘This is a natural next step for MCS and builds on our positive experience of welcoming girls into our sixth form since 2010.
‘Our decision will further strengthen our mission to facilitate educational excellence within a school which is diverse and inclusive.
‘Current and prospective parents often ask if we will admit girls – in many ways it has become a question of when, not if.
‘As we approach our 550th anniversary in 2030, it feels like the right time to make this change.’
The school, which caters to ages seven to 18, said it would gradually switch to co-ed over the coming decade, with girls welcomed into Year 3 and Year 4 in 2027, and into Year 7 in 2030.
It will also set a bursary fundraising target of £15 million in 2030, to provide places for less wealthy children.
Helen Pike, headteacher, said: ‘This is an exciting time for everyone at MCS. We are proud to offer a happy and inclusive learning environment shaped by inspiring teachers and enriching opportunities, one in which the brightest children can learn and flourish together.’
MCS is one of the best private schools in the country, and consistently tops league tables.
Last year, 61 per cent of all grades were grade 9, and 94 per cent were at least a 7.
Meanwhile 45 pupils got 10 grades 8-9, while 12 got at least 10 grade 9s.
It comes after Winchester College in Hampshire began phasing in female pupils from 2022, while Wellington College in Berkshire went fully co-ed from 2005, after first admitting girls to the sixth form in the 1970s.
