INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS INSPECTORATE - Radley College

Radley College 12
note is A New Boy’s Guide, which is pitched at exactly the right level for new pupils. The
website is considered to be very comprehensive and helpful. Parents find the ability of the
boys to log on to the school’s intranet from home a useful facility, supporting learning away
from the college.
3.15 Subject reports, both the formal end of term ones, and the interim reports (recently available
by email), are considered to be informative, often humorous, usually positive, well-written
documents with helpful guidance. They are felt to be tailored to the individual. Email is a
widely used tool for communication between home and college and parents are very pleased
by the speed and efficiency with which emails are responded to, especially by tutors.
3.16 The college handles any specific concerns of parents with care, and it is noteworthy that only
a very small number of formal complaints have been made in recent years. A parent’s first
port of call would be the tutor, but members of the SMT are involved as required; the parents
feel they know to whom they should turn. One parent was very impressed with the response
to a concern about a teaching issue.
3.17 The college promotes very positive links with the wider community. An extremely
comprehensive booklet describes in detail a wide range of community links, some of which
were witnessed by inspectors at first hand. The annual concert party involved a group of
Year 11 boys performing solo musical items and leading community singing with around 100
appreciative elderly residents of Radley village. The same boys regularly entertain patients
at local hospitals or at residential homes on Wednesday afternoons, whilst other boys work
with local schools at Radley’s countryside activity centre.
3.18 The Wednesday afternoon activity programme is partly designed to bring out the best of the
Radleians involved through altruistic work. ‘Instant muscle’ is a group of eight boys who
help with local gardening and maintenance work. One boy described the sense of fulfilment
he felt when he saw a photograph of a patient wearing an artificial leg he had helped to
construct during his working visits to a local hospital.
3.19 Radley boys take part in foreign exchanges and visits. Some of these widen boys’ horizons
by involving them in voluntary work such as house building in India or helping to run
holiday clubs for under privileged children in Romania. A very wide range of other links by
boys and staff with local maintained schools, fundraising for specific charities, and the use of
the college’s facilities by local and national groups add to the boys’ appreciation of
community responsibility.
3.20 The college meets the regulatory requirements for the provision of information and the
manner in which complaints are to be handled [Standards 6 and 7].