Orley Farm School is a fee paying school in the London borough of Harrow, at the foot of Harrow Hill on South Hill Avenue. It was founded as the preparatory school for Harrow School, although now only a few leavers go on there. It currently has a little under 500 pupils, and ages range from 4 (Reception) to 13 (Year 8). The school grounds cover over 36 acres (150,000 m2). The school is a mixed school until year 6, when girls leave and the school usually becomes almost exclusively boys until Year 8.
The current headmaster is Mark Dunning, who took over the post in September 2006 after the retirement of Ian Elliott.
As "Hastings School", it was founded in 1850 by the first headmaster, Edward Ridley Hastings, who was head for 47 years. The school houses are named Hastings, Hopkins, Broadrick (after former headmasters) and Julians. The last was the name of a property purchased by the school which happened to have been owned by the family of Anthony Trollope. Trollope described the house in his novel Orley Farm and Hastings, recognising the description, gained permission to rename the school "Orley Farm". Each of the houses has a house colour; Hastings - maroon, Hopkins - blue, Broadrick - yellow and Julians - green. However, the current headmaster has abolished the house ties and the tie has been standardised to the maroon colour. The only exceptions are the people with 'colours' for exceptional contributions to music or to the school. Their colours have the crest embossed onto the centre of the tie (music) or have acorns in rows over the whole tie (school). Unfortunately, the school has been recently unable to provide support to special needs children.
Notable former pupils include Robin Butler, a retired senior civil servant, Dale Winton, Martin Stevens (former Conservative MP for Fulham) and Anthony Horowitz. It may be possible that Horowitz's brother may have attended the school, as a L.P. Horowitz is mentioned on the scholarships board.
Famous quotes containing the words farm and/or school:
“The shifting islands! who would not be willing that his house should be undermined by such a foe! The inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the land which he cultivates; and his earth is still being created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away,—the graceful, gentle robber!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“By school age, many boys experience pressure to reveal inner feelings as humiliating. They think their mothers are saying to them, “You must be hiding something shameful.” And shucking clams is a snap compared to prying secrets out of a boy who’s decided to “clam up.””
—Ron Taffel (20th century)