|
Westminster School is an independent school within the precincts of Westminster Abbey, England, which has the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rates of any secondary school or college in the world.〔http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn00616.pdf〕 Founded in the 14th century, the school's alumni include Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Robert Hooke,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=A Memorial to Robert Hooke 1635 )〕 Sir Christopher Wren, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Edward Gibbon, Henry Mayhew, A. A. Milne, Peter Ustinov, Tony Benn and seven Prime Ministers. Boys are admitted to the Under School at age seven, and to the senior school at age thirteen; girls are admitted only at sixteen.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Westminster School )〕 The school has around 750 pupils; around a quarter are boarders, most of whom go home at weekends, after Saturday morning school.〔(Schools Guide ). ''The Tatler'' (London). 2009.〕 It is one of the original nine British public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=A Guide to Public Schools in the United Kingdom )〕 Charging up to £7,800 for day pupils per term and £11,264 for boarders per term in 2014/15, Westminster is the 13th most expensive HMC day school and 10th most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK.〔http://www.privateschoolfees.co.uk〕 ==History== Although it is likely that schoolboys were taught by monks from Westminster Abbey's foundation, the earliest recorded evidence of the school dates from 1371 and exists in Westminster Abbey's muniments.〔The King's Nurseries, John Field, page 14〕 Parts of the buildings now used by the school date back to the 11th century and were originally part of the Anglo-Saxon Abbey at Westminster. In 1540, Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in England, but personally ensured the School's survival by his royal charter.〔(Historical notes on Westminster Schools. ) Westminster City Council. "After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII personally ensured its survival by statute".〕 The College of St. Peter carried on with forty "King's Scholars" financed from the royal purse. By this point Westminster School had certainly become a public school (i.e., a school available to members of the public from across the country, so long as they could pay their own costs, rather than private tuition provided to the nobility). During Mary I's brief reign the Abbey was reinstated as a Roman Catholic monastery but the school continued. Elizabeth I re-founded the School in 1560,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Elizabeth I has been credited with founding the Westminster School in 1560 )〕 with new statutes to select 40 Queen's Scholars from boys who had already attended the school for a year.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Westminster School in London )〕 Queen Elizabeth frequently visited her scholars, although she never signed the statutes nor endowed her scholarships, and 1560 is now generally taken as the date that the school was "founded". Elizabeth I appointed William Camden〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=William Camden )〕 as headmaster and he was the only layman known to have held the role until 1937.〔The King's Nurseries, John Field, page 29〕 It was Dr Busby,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Dr. Richard Busby, Lord of the Manor & Headmaster of Westminster School )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Dr. Richard Busby's legacy )〕 himself an Old Westminster, who established the reputation of the school for several hundred years, as much by his classical learning as for his ruthless discipline by the birch, immortalised in Pope's ''Dunciad''. Busby prayed publicly Up School〔"Up School" is a Westminster term, meaning in or to the ancient school hall.〕 for the safety of the Crown, on the very day of Charles I's execution, and then locked the boys inside to prevent their going to watch the spectacle a few hundred yards away. Regardless of politics, he thrashed Royalist and Puritan boys alike without fear or favour. Busby also took part in Oliver Cromwell's funeral procession in 1658; when Robert Uvedale, a Westminster schoolboy, succeeded in snatching the "Majesty Scutcheon" (white satin banner) draped on the coffin (it was given to the School by his family two hundred years later). Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration. In 1679, a group of scholars killed a bailiff, ostensibly in defence of the Abbey's traditional right of sanctuary, but possibly because the man was trying to arrest a consort of the boys. Dr Busby obtained a royal pardon for his scholars from Charles II, and added the cost to the school bills. Until the 19th century, the curriculum was predominantly made up of Latin and Greek all taught Up School.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Westminster School Past and Present )〕 The Westminster boys were uncontrolled outside school hours and notoriously unruly about town, but the proximity of the School to the Palace of Westminster meant that politicians were well aware of the boys' exploits. After the Public Schools Act 1868, in response to the Clarendon Commission〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Public Schools and Private Education: The Clarendon Commission, 1861-64 )〕 on the financial and other malpractices at nine pre-eminent public schools, the school began to approach its modern form. It was legally separated from the Abbey in 1868, although the organisations remain close and the Dean of Westminster Abbey is ''ex officio'' the Chairman of the Governors. There followed a scandalous public and parliamentary dispute over a further 25 years, to settle the transfer of the properties from the Canons of the Abbey to the School. School statutes have been made by Order in Council of Queen Elizabeth II. Furthermore, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge are ''ex officio'' members of the school's governing body.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Westminster School: The Governing Body )〕 Unusually among public schools, Westminster did not adopt most of the broader changes associated with the Victorian ethos of Thomas Arnold, such as the emphasis on team over individual spirit, and the school retained much of its distinctive character. Despite many pressures, including evacuation and the destruction of the School roof during the Blitz, the school also refused to move out of the city, unlike other schools such as Charterhouse and St. Paul's, and remains in its central London location. Westminster Under School was formed in 1943〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Westminster Under School )〕 in the evacuated school buildings in Westminster, as a distinct preparatory school for day pupils between the ages of 8 to 13 (now 7 to 13). Only the separation is new: for example, in the 18th century, Edward Gibbon attended Westminster from the age of 11 and Jeremy Bentham from the age of 8.〔The Record of Old Westminsters〕 The Under School has since moved to Vincent Square, overlooking the School's playing fields. Its current Master is Mrs. Elizabeth Hill. In 1967, the first female pupil was admitted to the School, with girls becoming full members of the school from 1973 onwards. In 1981, a single-sex boarding house, Purcell's, was created for girls. In 1997 the school expanded further with the creation of a new day house, Milne's at 5a, Dean's Yard. In 2005 the school was one of fifty leading private schools guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, exposed by ''The Times'', which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of customers. Mrs Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said that independent schools had always been exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business, were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other, and that they were unaware of the change to the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed.". However, each school agreed to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and ex-gratia payments totalling £3 million into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared. In 2007, the school responded to an invitation to become the sponsor of Pimlico School, which was due to be rebuilt as an academy but decided not to go ahead. Westminster City Council chose John Nash, a businessman who owns the for-profit Alpha Plus schools group. In 2010, the school and Westminster Abbey hosted an event to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the granting of the institution's Royal Charter. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, guests of the occasion, unveiled a statue of Elizabeth's namesake in Little Dean's Yard. The Statue of The School's Foundress was created by sculptor and Old Westminster Matthew Spender.〔(), ''The Telegraph'', 22 May 2010〕 In May 2013, the school was criticised for staging an auction involving the selling of internships to fund bursaries, resulting in adverse coverage in the press.〔(Luke Hurst: Westminster School are Slapping You in the Face With a Big Wad of Cash ). ''Huffington Post''. Retrieved 13 August 2013.〕 Also in 2013, it was announced that the school would be collaborating with the Harris Federation to set up a selective, mixed, Sixth Form Academy at an as yet unspecified location in the capital, with entrance priority to be given to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.〔(Top public school offers pupils from poor backgrounds academy route to Oxbridge ). The Times (20 April 2013). Retrieved 13 August 2013.〕 The Academy became known as Harris Westminster. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Westminster School」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|