16th November 2021 — St Faith’s Rated as Excellent in all area in recent ISI Inspection

St Faith’s, a leading Cambridge Prep school for girls and boys aged 4-13 years, recently underwent a routine inspection from the Independent Schools Inspectorate. In the Focused Compliance inspection St Faith’s was judged to be fully compliant. The Educational Quality Inspection focused on two key outcomes: the achievement of the pupils, including their academic development, which was judged to be excellent; and the personal development of the pupils, which was also deemed to be excellent.

Key findings of the inspection are summarised as follows:

Pupil achievements:

· St Faith’s pupils exhibit very high levels of proficiency in ancient and modern foreign language learning

· St Faith’s pupils of all ages display excellent attitude to their studies and maintain high levels of focus in lessons

· The success of St Faith’s pupils in sports and a wide range of other activities is exceptional

· Pupils are highly articulate and show very effective communication skills

Pupil personal development:

· St Faith’s pupils’ behaviour and moral understanding are outstanding

· St Faith’s pupils ability to work collaboratively is excellent

· St Faith’s pupils show high levels of reflection and understand how to improve their learning

· St Faith’s pupils demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of how to keep themselves safe and healthy

Commenting on the report Headmaster, Dr Crispin Hyde-Dunn said, ‘I am absolutely delighted that St Faith’s has achieved the highest possible outcomes in our ISI inspection, with pupils’ achievements and personal development both being judged as excellent. This report reflects the tremendous efforts of St Faith’s staff and governors over many years, as well as the outstanding achievements of St Faith’s pupils.

At St Faith’s we strive to be a happy, inclusive and supportive community, promoting excellence in all areas. It is therefore particularly pleasing that our pupils have been recognised for their excellent attitudes to their studies, their exceptional success in sport and other activities, and their outstanding behaviour.

This excellent inspection outcome is also evidence of the strength of The Leys and St Faith’s Foundation, affirming the very high quality of education offered at St Faith’s. I look forward to leading the St Faith’s community into our next exciting chapter.’

The full ISI report can be found via the school’s website (www.stfaiths.co.uk).

26th March 2021 — St Faith’s pupil, Ryan Stubbs (Year 7), was declared the winner in his age category in the Oxford University Computing Challenge following the live international finals last week.

Ryan entered alongside a field of over 100,000 pupils from 50 countries in the Bebras challenge, a computational thinking competition.

The top 10% in each age group qualified for the Oxford University Computing Challenge, which tested pupils on their ability to produce programmed solutions to computational thinking problems.

Having finished the first round joint top in his age category of over 68,500 competitors, Ryan took part in the final on the 18th March.

After completing a series of timed coding challenges which included tasks such as calculating the length of a base of a triangle made from any number of dominoes; editing pixels’ RGB values to add a border to an image and encoding a message by following a specific sequence of reversing letters in words, Ryan was declared the winner of the Junior National Finals.

Commenting on his win Ryan said: "I really like how creative I can be in computing and how there are so many ways to solve a single problem.

"I never thought I would do this well, but after a few questions my brain just started working out how to solve the problems."

Jamie Mitchell, Head of Computing and Digital Learning at St Faith’s said: "I could not be more proud of Ryan’s achievement.

"His dedication to Computing and the structure of the Computing curriculum here at St Faith’s have allowed him to flourish and to win this highly prestigious international title."

11th December 2020 — Canon Tom Buchanan, Chairman of Governors at The Leys and St Faith’s Foundation today announced that, following a very thorough selection and a top quality field, Dr Crispin Hyde-Dunn has been appointed as the next Head of St Faith’s, to succeed Mr Nigel Helliwell who retires in 2021.

Dr Hyde-Dunn, who is currently Headmaster of The Dragon School, Oxford, read History at St Catherine’s College Oxford, has an MA in Leadership and Management and a PhD in History. Prior to being appointed as Head of the Dragon School in 2016, he was Head of Abingdon Preparatory School for six years. He is very familiar with the educational landscape of Cambridge, having spent several years as Deputy Head Academic at King’s College School before moving to Abingdon.

Commenting on his appointment Crispin said: “It is a tremendous privilege to be invited to lead St Faith’s School. The school has flourished under the leadership of Nigel Helliwell and is highly ambitious for further success for every pupil. The innovative, award-winning and broad curriculum is an exciting feature of St Faith’s and is really valued by the staff and pupils. Excellent pastoral care compliments the academic provision, and the school benefits from outstanding facilities, both onsite and within the wider Foundation of The Leys and St Faith’s Schools. I greatly look forward to joining the community and working with staff, pupils and parents to shape the exciting future of St Faith’s, and I look forward to coming back to Cambridge.”

Crispin will join St Faith’s in January 2022. In order to preserve continuity, Nigel Helliwell has kindly agreed to remain as Head until then, instead of retiring at the end of the summer term as previously announced.

Canon Tom Buchanan, Chair of Governors said: “We are delighted that Crispin has agreed to become the next Head of St Faith’s. With his track record of running successful schools, and his strong pastoral ethos he is exactly the right person to continue to develop St Faith’s in the coming years. Crispin will inherit a school that has flourished under Nigel’s leadership, and we look forward to welcoming him to St Faith’s in a year’s time.”

26th May 2020 — Talented St Faith's School pupil Louisa has been putting her time in lockdown to good use by applying her impressive artistic talents to create pet portraits in return for contributions to the Blue Smile charity. Using pastels and charcoal, Louisa has so far completed 17 commissions and has a further 12 to complete.

Typically all Year 8 pupils at St Faith’s would be participating in the annual Charity Challenge at this time of the year. Due to the current environment most pupils have had to abandon plans of car washes, cake sales and other community activities. Louisa, however, saw an opportunity to combine her loves of art and animals to raise funds for a cause which will help others enjoy and benefit from art. So Louisa asked teachers and friends to send her photos of their pets for a minimum contribution of £10 per picture. With over 30 requests she has enjoyed a very busy and productive Easter holiday and is trying to fit in her remaining commissions in between online home based learning now that the summer term has started.

When asked about her motivation for this challenge Louisa commented: "The St Faiths charity challenge was postponed in lockdown, but I wanted to do it anyway. I love art and I have more time to do it in lockdown. I am happy that I can raise money for Blue Smile, because they do art therapy to help children. I have done portraits of horses, cats, a hedgehog and lots of dogs. I even did one with my granny in the picture. I hope doing this might persuade my parents to let me have a dog!"

Louisa’s method of fundraising links so well with her chosen charity as Blue Smile provides arts-based therapy to children with mental health and emotional problems across Cambridgeshire. In the past few days, thanks to funding from the Cambridgeshire Coronavirus Community Fund, the charity has distributed art packs to all schools that therapists were working in. These packs, containing colouring pencils, paints and activity sheets, will help children who were receiving Blue Smile therapy express how they are feeling at this difficult time. Many of these children are also receiving ‘keeping in touch’ telephone calls from therapists, so they know they are not forgotten.

Jess Manley, Director of Blue Smile, said: “What Louisa is doing is really wonderful! She is very talented and it is so kind of her to think of other children during lockdown. The money she raises will help many children who feel frightened, worried and alone. We really cannot thank her enough.”

12th February 2019 — Last week Year 6 were given a fascinating glimpse into the world of drug discovery and development by a team of four Scientists from AstraZeneca, including Dr Menelas Pangalos, EVP and Global Head BioPharmaceuticals Research and Development who is responsible for AstraZeneca’s pharmaceutical research worldwide.

The workshop linked very well with the pupils’ recent Science lessons on cell biology and provided a great opportunity to extend their knowledge and see how it is applied in real life.

Pupils raced against a robot to test chemical properties and worked in teams to build chiral compounds. The complex chemistry was clearly explained by our visitors and the practical hands-on activities gave pupils a clear understanding of the medicine development process which takes, in most cases, at least 14 years.

Mrs Alison Price, Head of Science at St Faith’s said, “Our Year 6s are so lucky – what an inspirational team – this was a fantastic opportunity to get a glimpse into such a fascinating world.”

Taking to Twitter after his visit Dr Pangalos wrote, “Spent a great morning talking about drug discovery with colleagues from @AstraZeneca at @St_Faiths. What a bright and enthusiastic group of year 6 students... Great scientists in the making.”

Not surprisingly, our Year 6 pupils loved this special lesson and were left inspired. Many thanks to the AstraZeneca team and particularly Dr Pangalos who had flown overnight from Washington to help deliver this workshop to the Year 6 children.

4th February 2019 — ***PRESS RELEASE*** St Faith’s won Pre-pre/prep school of the year at the prestigious Tes Independent School Awards 2019 London, 8 February 2019: St Faith’s has won pre-pre/prep school of the year at the prestigious Tes Independent School Awards 2019. St Faith’s won the highly competitive Pre-prep/Prep School of the Year category for its innovation, commitment to sustainability and “narrative of excellence in a number of key areas of school life”. The coeducational prep school is unique in placing Engineering at the core of the curriculum from age seven and offers training on how to teach the subject. Sport is a major part of school life – teams reached 20 national finals in 2017-18 – while all pupils learn at least one musical instrument. Every year group puts on at least one major drama production, and workshops with two special needs schools are a highlight of the school year. This approach has paid dividends: more than 90 per cent of leavers get into their secondary of choice and on average they win 28 scholarships a year. St Faith’s also collaborates with many other schools across multiple different areas. As a ‘lead school’ in the Network of Computing Excellence, it works with 25 schools in developing their IT infrastructure, while their bursar mentors 18 Cambridgeshire schools on low-cost energy saving programmes. The school supports the Cambridgeshire Chess League and its nursing staff hosted a conference about mental health issues facing school-aged children, a first for the county. Lead judge Michael Abraham said: “St Faith’s narrowly missed out in 2018 with a magnificent entry but in the great fabled Bruce tradition of try, try and try again, they have this year gone one better. This is an extraordinary entry and a most worthy winner.” This year’s categories and winners are as follows (full details of the winners can be viewed here): Special services to independent education award: John Weitzel, Loughborough Grammar School Senior leadership team of the year: The Holmewood School Whole-school community initiative of the year: Norwich School Independent-state school partnership award: Lichfield Cathedral School Special needs initiative of the year: The Holmewood School Marketing campaign of the year: Woldingham School Wellbeing initiative of the year: Reigate Grammar School Creativity award: Wilds Lodge School Strategic education initiative of the year: Sandroyd International school of the year: Cranleigh Abu Dhabi, UAE Sports award: Surbiton High School Best use of technology award: Aberdour School Pre-prep/prep school of the year: St Faith’s Boarding school of the year: Cottesmore School Senior school of the year: Bolton School Independent school of the year: Bolton School For more coverage of the awards, profiles of the winners and photographs from the evening, please visit isawards.co.uk or pick up a copy of Tes magazine, available in newsagents from 8 February. -Ends-