A CITY international school is celebrating 60 years’ teaching with a new £3.3m block.

St Clare’s in Banbury Road was founded in 1953 by Pamela Morris and Anne Dreydel OBE for children displaced by the Second World War.

They originally taught children in their own homes and today the school takes 268 pupils from 50 countries.

The independent school only offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) qualification to people aged 15 and older with boarding fees up to £34,000.

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The new £3.3m Pamela Morris building has windows which automatically close when it rains.

The new building will be officially opened by Professor Roger Ainsworth, Master of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, on Thursday at 2.15pm.

Mrs Holloway said the building was “intelligently designed” with “everything electrically-controlled”, including lighting, heating and windows.

She added: “The college has a limited number of large classrooms and we were facing the increasing problem of lack of space – something not easy to overcome within this conservation area of North Oxford, where you naturally want to retain as much open space as possible.

“We have succeeded in transforming a small, awkward piece of land into a first-class teaching facility.”

The building has three science laboratories, three large classrooms for mathematics lessons and a new maintenance facility.

St Clare’s was among the first in the country to offer the qualification, Europe’s equivalent to A-Levels.

Principal Paula Holloway said: “The number of English students has increased in the past five years.

“Young people in general have become more focused on other cultures, other languages and the different opportunities they offer.

“They recognise the value of being able to move easily between cultures.”

About one in five students, 18 per cent, are English.

This year, for the fourth consecutive year, the school topped performance tables for county sixth form results and ranks eighth nationwide.

Mrs Holloway added: “We have tried to let our community know more about the benefits of the IB, but I think the world in general is moving in that direction. Young people are becoming more open-minded, interested in an education surrounded by pupils from other countries.”


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