The King’s School Ely

King’s Ely is one of seven schools established, or in some cases, including this one, re-endowed and renamed, by King Henry VIII in 1541 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
King’s Ely, which was renamed from The King’s School in March 2012 is a coeducational independent day and boarding school in the cathedral city of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. It was founded in 970 A.D., making it one of the oldest schools in the world, though it was given its Royal Charter by King Henry VIII in 1541. The school consists of a nursery, a reception class, junior school, senior school, and an international school. It is a member of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference.

The senior school was placed third regionally for its GCSE results. The last available national league table ranking of the school before its choice to withdraw from the ranking system was 243rd.

There are four boarding houses in the senior school, 2 for boys and 2 for girls, one of which is for the girls choir. Hereward Hall is a boys’ boarding house, previously sited opposite the Porta, it is now situated on Barton Square in Ely, on the site of an old Cambridge theological college. It contains about 55 boys. School House is the other boys’ boarding house, based along The Gallery – the road up to the west end of Ely Cathedral. It houses approximately 60 boys. According to the school’s official website, it is the “oldest inhabited residential building in Europe  although the veracity of this is uncertain. Etheldreda, previously called Canonry is a girls’ boarding house, established in September 2006, for the Girls Choir of Ely Cathedral, all of whom are pupils in senior school. The house is located very close to the cathedral itself for ease of access for practice and performance (in evensong each Wednesday and every other Monday). Hill House, situated on the corner of Barton Square and Back Hill, was until recently a boy’s boarding house, being converting to housing girls as their numbers swelled. Two houses were formed on the introduction of girls into the school; Etheldreda and Withburga; the latter to house day pupils. Until September 2006 when the girls choir house was formed, Etheldreda (later to be called ‘Hill House’) was the only girls’ boarding house. It is now the largest of all the boarding houses. Originally situated on Cambridge Road, it relocated to Hill House (which was renamed), reverting to 1970′s name of ‘Hill House’ in recent years.

In the most recent Ofsted report of boarding at the school, inspectors reported that “the school provides very good care and support to boarders and there was an obvious caring culture within the boarding houses” although they said that “the school would benefit from harmonising boarding practices across the entire boarding provision.

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