Abingdon School and Abingdon Prep School announce their move to co-education

Today, Monday 13 May 2024, we are delighted to announce that we will very soon be offering girls the same wide ranging opportunities - high academic standards, formidable extracurricular programmes, and outstanding pastoral care - that our boys have enjoyed over the centuries.    

Abingdon and Abingdon Prep School have long been highly successful but we want the education we deliver to be reflective of today’s society - one where equal opportunity for the sexes is promoted and in which both girls and boys should be able to be as ambitious as each other and be in control of their own future success.  We believe that the life skills of teamwork, emotional intelligence, mutual understanding and the ability to relate to others are better fostered in a co-educational environment and one which more closely mirrors the conditions of real life.  Our values of intellectual curiosity; a balanced education; and outstanding pastoral support will remain the core of all that we do and we believe a stronger and better Abingdon will emerge as a result of this move.  

Chair of Governors for The Abingdon Foundation, Professor Mike Stevens, comments:  “I am very excited by what this development will mean for the Abingdonians of the future. The Abingdon I have known has always been open to the opportunities that change can bring and our decision has been driven by what we think is best for education today.  As the senior school’s Aims and Ethos statement already expresses it, Abingdon has “a constant eye on innovation to reflect the needs of a rapidly-changing world”.  Our vision is very much of a stronger Abingdon Foundation with the proposition of an education that will be exceptional for both girls and boys in terms of its opportunities, its excitement and its ambition for their future.”  

Abingdon Prep School will admit girls to its Pre-Prep from September 2024; and to Years 3 to 6 from September 2025.  Abingdon Senior School will admit girls to its 1st Year (Year 7) and Sixth Form (Year 12) from September 2026.

Please click here to view a video message from Mike Windsor, Head of Abingdon School.