Welcome to the website of Blessed Hugh Faringdon school!

We are looking forward to welcoming guests to our upcoming Open Day and Evening, Thursday 22nd September. Click Join Us for further information, including our new school video.

At the time of his trial in 1539, Blessed Hugh, the last Benedictine Abbot of Reading Abbey, gave witness to the importance of ‘true teaching’. True teaching in faith and true intellectual formation continue to go hand in hand in our school.

Blessed Hugh Faringdon Catholic School is an oversubscribed, high performing, co-educational school of 950 students, located in West Reading. The school, which includes a thriving Sixth Form, was graded as “Good” by OFSTED in 2017. We were pleased to be the best performing co-educational secondary school in Reading in terms of student progress, in 2019. Our results from 2019 to 2022 speak for themselves.

Blessed Hugh has been on a consistent improvement journey for over five years, and throughout the Lockdown period we were clear that this improvement would not stall, but would continue. Therefore we are delighted to see that our 2022 GCSE, A Level, GCSE and Btec results show continuous progress overtime when compared with the last published results, with an average grade B at A Level. The all-important English-Maths threshold results have also improved, reflecting excellent core teaching. The proportion of our students applying to University who achieved top destinations was also very high, and, given the extraordinary challenges this generation of examinees has had to face, we could not be more proud of them.

For students to achieve they need to feel they belong and that they matter. Our curriculum is ambitious, not only in offering a broad range of opportunities to develop academically, but also to provide a formative experience that allows students to develop as a young person into early adulthood. We believe generosity, truthfulness, fortitude resilience and love – as some of the attributes of a flourishing life - should be rightly prized, encouraged and celebrated alongside academic excellence.

Ultimately, a school is a living, vibrant community, and as a prospective parent / student you have a choice. We will be delighted to welcome you and show you around once you make contact, and give you the chance to meet our most powerful ambassadors – our students.

I look forward to meeting you in due course.

Dr Simon Uttley
Headteacher