History of the Foundation
The Warwickshire Catholic Independent Schools Foundation
The Warwickshire Catholic Independent Schools Foundation came into being in September 2001.
The foundation, a charitable trust, merged Princethorpe College with St Joseph's School, Kenilworth to provide continuous education for boys and girls from nursery age to 18 years.
Princethorpe College
Princethorpe College first opened its doors in September 1966, on the site of the former St Mary's Priory, previously home to a community of Benedictine nuns.
The College, run by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, had originated in Leamington in the late 1950s. St Bede's College, as it was known, had grown from fourteen pupils in 1957 to three hundred and thirty, with parents booking places several years ahead.
A move to bigger premises was therefore necessitated and the MSC were successful, against fierce competition, in their bid for St Mary's Priory and its 200 acres of land.
Fr John Fleming was the College's first headmaster. Initially there were fewer than two hundred pupils at Princethorpe as the juniors remained at St Bede's in Leamington until 1978.
Initially over half of the boys boarded at the school, but over time the trend towards parents opting for day places rather than boarding increased. Pressure on space to enable the day school to grow resulted in the end of boarding around 2004.
Girls were introduced into the Sixth Form in small numbers from 1976 and Princethorpe went co-educational in 1993.
Pupil numbers have grown steadily over the years, today there are equal numbers of girls and boys with around 750 pupils in both the College and its Sixth Form. The facilities have been extended and updated to keep pace with the growth of the school, with the latest development being the new Sixth Form Centre, which opened its doors in October 2007.
Click on the link for more information on St Mary's Priory.
Crackley Hall
Crackley Hall was formerly known as St Joseph's and the school dates back to 1850, when the Sisters of Mercy began fund raising for a school in Coventry. After moving to Stoneleigh Abbey during the war they finally took up residence at Crackley Hall in 1945, formerly home of the Armstrong Siddeley family of car-making fame.
When the Sisters of Mercy left in 1991 to concentrate on their work with the poor, the school passed to lay trustees and in 2001, when the school became part of the Warwickshire Catholic Independent Schools Foundation, the senior pupils transferred to Princethorpe College, with the Nursery and Junior School staying at the Crackley campus.
Crackley Hall has been extensively modernised and an on-going programme of improvement continues.
