University College School

Mission Statement

 UCS was founded to promote principles of liberal scholarship. That remains our first and over-riding aim. Intellectual curiosity, breadth of study and independence of mind combine to achieve academic excellence; they are not subordinate to it.

 Selecting students with no regard to race or creed, UCS fosters in them a sense of community alongside a tolerance of and a respect for the individual. By offering the fullest range of opportunities for personal and for group endeavour, it teaches the value of commitment and the joy of achievement. It is a place of study, but also of self-discovery and self-expression; a school that places equal value on learning with others as on learning from others.

Guiding Aims of the UCS Foundation

The UCS Foundation comprises three schools: The Phoenix (coeducational, 3-7); The Junior Branch (boys, 7-11); The Senior School (boys, 11-16; coeducational, 16-18). These Guiding Aims define the overriding purpose of all three schools:

1. UCS aims to provide an education that stimulates, enriches and informs. As well as enabling all students to reach the highest academic standards, we aim to offer a broad range of opportunity and of experience that will develop the individual talents of every student.
2. UCS aims to be a distinctively liberal and tolerant environment, educating students to respect people of all creeds and backgrounds, teaching them the value and importance of contribution, encouraging self-expression and helping students to develop the self-knowledge and self-esteem that will enable them to lead independent lives.
3. UCS aims to know and to care for all of its students as individuals, to be concerned for their emotional as well as their academic well-being, and to help them to develop a similar care and respect for the well-being of others.
4. UCS aims to provide an education that prepares students effectively for the next stage of their education and for their lives after UCS.
5. UCS aims to recruit the best staff - both in teaching and in supporting roles - and to offer them the fullest opportunities for professional development. We recognise a responsibility for the well-being of all of our staff. We aim to provide resourcing of such quality and reliability as will enable all staff to work efficiently, comfortably and happily.
6. The managers and governors of UCS recognise a continuing need to maintain and improve the quality of all of the schools’ physical accommodation and of resources for teaching and learning.
7. UCS seeks to be active within the broader community of which it is a part – local, national and global – and to educate students to recognise and to respond to their own responsibilities within these communities.
8. The managers and governors of UCS aim to lead the school in a manner that is inclusive of all staff, that is alert to and responsive to change, and that always sees the broad educational interests of our students as the school’s first priority.
9. UCS aspires towards a time when access to the education that it offers will not be restricted by factors of family income and wealth.