Radley Partnership

The partnership between Desborough and Radley represents a collaboration and friendship between our two schools. It seeks to provide shared opportunities for all students and teachers within the classroom and through wider extra-curricular activities.

IT HAS BEEN A PRIVILEGE TO PARTNER WITH DESBOROUGH COLLEGE OVER THE LAST SIX YEARS.

Far from it being a example of a reluctant independent school forcing its ‘help’ on a state school for political reasons, it has been a genuine partnership built on mutual respect at all levels: governance; heads, senior teams; teaching and operational staff and, of course, the boys. Crucially, it is a two-way process with Radley staff and pupils enjoying and benefiting from the interaction. The relationship is a constant reminder that though we might be different in context, we are the same in purpose; both schools simply want to provide the best education for boys. Long may the partnership continue.

JOHN MOULE, WARDEN, RADLEY COLLEGE

Student Stories

Our links with Radley have been educational and great to have throughout my A levels so far. In this academic year alone, I have visited Radley twice and on each occasion it is has been a real pleasure. It has been great way to extend my knowledge and further development my ability to thinking broadly.

Meeting the students and teachers at Radley allowed me to connect and learn; I felt fully accepted and therefore could join in with Radley’s learning. The first time I went to Radley was last year where myself, along with other Desborough students, joined Radley boys in their normal lessons. We shared ideas, developed friendships and even went back to their place to play table tennis and pool during the evening. I visited again in June for an amazing evening with a talk on Geo Politics from Oxford Analytica. A great evening which furthered my thinking for next year’s A2 work as well as the general knowledge of the world and its working. We are currently organising a golf game between 4 yr. 12 Radley boys and 4 Desborough boys; I know that other boys have competed against them at rugby and athletics.

Overall the links with Radley have been beneficial for me so far and I hope we can have more links in the future with all boys across all subjects.

We have developed a ‘buddy system’ with students at Desborough to help with our A level studies in geography. During our meetings we have discussed contemporary issues facing the world, it has been incredibly beneficial to hear the differing opinions/viewpoints from the respective schools. Being centred around a subject which we are all studying, it has been good to share learning techniques, whilst at the same time build friendships with the boys at Desborough and hear about their respective backgrounds. During combined learning activities everyone has engaged in friendly conversation. I hope that these partnerships will develop in the future. Beyond the classroom we had supper together and even played a match of football. We have all exchanged contact details to allow us to continue to share ideas.

Thursday 14th June, what a great day! I was selected as part of the Desborough team to compete at Radley in the ‘Multi Events’ athletics match. There were several other schools invited including Abingdon, Eton College, Coopers’ and Magdalen College. It was a really enjoyable day as we had the chance to compete against friends and rivals in four events; two track and two field. The races I took part in were 400m and 800m; finishing second in both events. I came close to beating my personal best in the 800m. I was really happy with my performance and really proud to represent my school, Desborough College, in such a high profile event.

Radley Partnership

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