All weekends, except for the first and last weekend of term, are ‘Open’ Weekends, meaning boarders can go home on Friday evening or after their Saturday commitments and return on Sunday evening or Monday morning. We have two ‘Exeat’ Weekends each term when all pupils go home or to guardians from the Friday lunchtime to the Sunday evening or Monday morning.
There is a Dragon Bus every Sunday evening which brings boarders back to School from London and this does the Oxford-London route for exeats and half terms.
Our weekend programme is busy, varied and such fun that we often find that boarders opt to remain during weekends to participate in the wide-ranging activities on offer: excursions (to venues such as Legoland, Drayton Manor Theme Park, Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures); and outings to Paintballing, Laser Tag, High Ropes, Coral Reef, Trampolining, Camp building and games in Shotover Woods, Ice skating at Oxford Ice Rink and Swindon Oasis to name but a few.
School facilities are used for activities too, including cooking, table tennis, art and crafts, swimming, giant inflatables, laser tag, graffiti art, circus skills, silent disco, Sharky and George activities, games on the fields or the river, or on one of the three AstroTurfs. Time during weekends can also be spent practicing musical instruments, rehearsing for plays and enjoying free-time in House and around the School. The Houses put on challenges such as Bake-Off and Masterchef nights, Olympiad evenings and Talent Shows.
Instead of compulsory academic lessons on Saturday mornings, from September 2020 Years 4 and 5 take part in our exciting enrichment programme, Dragon QUEST. This will be rolled out to Years 6-8 from September 2021. All full boarders who are in School on Saturdays choose from a wide and stimulating range of Dragon QUEST activities and the vast majority of day pupils also participate. There are Saturday afternoon sports fixtures for Years 7 and 8 at which parents are very welcome to support and enjoy match tea.
