The school operates the "diamond" model format. Up until the end of Year 6 and in the Sixth Form, the children are taught in co-educational classes. In years 7 to 11, students are taught in single sex classes. The school is a member of the Catholic Independent Schools Conference and the ISA, and the principal is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.
History
The school was founded in Liège, now part of Belgium in 1642 by Susan Hawley, who also formed the English Community of the Canonesses Regular of the Holy Sepulchre.[2] The founding Religious Order, the Canonesses Regular of the Holy Sepulchre, is one of the most ancient in the Church and was established in Europe long before the English Religious Community was founded in 1642. The school expanded considerably in size and scope from 1770 under the leadership of Mary Dennett.[3] The school began to offer a Catholic education to girls who were denied this in England in the Post-Protestant Reformation period and to girls from other countries too.[3] In 1794, the French Revolutionary Wars forced the nuns to leave the Low Countries. The school reopened on its present site in 1799.
In 1994, the Preparatory Divisions were re-established on the campus at New Hall. Opening with 40 pupils, the school grew rapidly over the following years. In 1995, the Preparatory Divisions welcomed its first boarders and the boarding programme was later extended to boys as well.
In 2001, New Hall appointed its first lay principal, Mrs Katherine Jeffrey. In April 2005, the administration made a landmark decision to go fully co-educational, ending over 360 years of single-sex education. The announcement was made that the Senior Divisions would be embarking on a period of further expansion, with the establishment of a separate Boys' Division (11–16) and a co-educational Sixth Form.[4] The Senior Divisions now accepts boys throughout the 11–18 age range and there are two boys' boarding houses fully established, in addition to the two girls' boarding houses.[5]
The move towards co-education using the "diamond model" has proved extremely successful. New Hall was commended by judges at the 2011 Independent School Awards for the "ambitious and pioneering move" and won the award for "outstanding strategic initiative".[6] In 2016 New Hall was voted TES Independent School of the Year.
The New Hall School Trust (NHST) was established as a new registered charity (1110286) and limited company in 2005. The principal objective of the NHST, as set out in the Memorandum and Articles, is ‘to advance the Roman Catholic religion by the conduct of a Roman Catholic School’. In 2012 New Hall was invited to become the first independent school in the country to sponsor a state primary school that was seeking to become an Academy under the new Government scheme. The new academy formally opened in September 2013, forming the New Hall Multi Academy Trust (NHMAT), a partnership between New Hall School and Messing Primary School.
Buildings
Sir Thomas Boleyn inherited New Hall from his father Sir William in the late 1400s and in 1517, the estate was acquired by King Henry VIII, who greatly enlarged and enhanced the building and called it Beaulieu. The Royal Arms of Henry VIII are now to be seen in the school Chapel. For many years the home of Mary Tudor, New Hall was subsequently granted to the Earl of Sussex by Queen Elizabeth I. Oliver Cromwell later procured the estate for 5 shillings.[7]
Having fallen into disrepair and been somewhat pillaged, the house was bought by a Dutch trader John Olmius in 1738 who refashioned the north wing as a self-contained house with a new entrance and bay windows, interior plasterwork and panelling. Under the reign of George III, he became the 1st Baron Waltham of Philpstown.
Houses
There are six vertical houses named after figures venerated in the Catholic church:
New Hall has a strong academic record and regularly tops the exam results table for Essex county.[13][14][15] In the 2021 A Levels, it achieved a 97% pass rate at grades A*-B and 75% at A*/A. At GCSE, 79% of grades were 7+ (A*/A).
Specialist subject provision starts in the Preparatory Division with science, modern and classical languages and politics. New Hall has the largest politics department and the largest theology department of any school in the country;[citation needed] subjects such as psychology, business and economics are three of the 20+ options at A Level, while the Classics department offers both Latin and Greek at GCSE and A Level.
Pastoral care
Pupils are required to attend regular chapel services. Practising Catholic pupils may choose to actively participate in spiritual activities such as Bible studies and the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes. The school chapel runs weekly Sunday mass which is open to the public and serves the Parish of St Augustine of Canterbury, Springfield.[16] Pupils and staff often serve as musicians, choristers, altar servers, sacristans and readers.[1]
Co-curricular activities
Sport
Students compete at county, regional, national and international level in a wide range of sports and have met with success.[17][18][19] In recent years, there has been a significant investment in the sports facilities on campus. The first-class provision now includes: The Waltham Centre 25m 6-lane indoor swimming pool; a national standard athletics track and floodlit Astroturf; 10 floodlit tennis/netball courts; two sports halls; Parsons Hall dance studio; junior and senior cricket wickets and indoor training nets; hockey, rugby and football pitches. New Hall also has well-established links with a local riding school and a golf club.
The more popular sports are cricket, hockey, netball, rugby, and tennis. There is a wide variety of other sports, including aerobics & pilates, athletics, badminton, basketball, cross country, fencing, football, golf, equitation, swimming, volleyball and triathlon.
The music, dance and drama departments are in the Walkfares Performing Arts Centre. The school puts on performances from Shakespeare to modern plays and musicals.
All students are encouraged to participate in the English Speaking Board (ESB), Trinity or London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) programmes. Students take individual lessons in orchestral instruments, piano, singing, drums and electric guitars. Some students take lessons on the restored Norman & Beard organ in the chapel.
Performing groups include senior and junior choirs, chamber choirs, a chapel choir, a senior orchestra, a strings academy, wind bands, a guitar ensemble, and chamber groups. Students are also encouraged to form jazz and pop bands.
New Hall School Choir has performed at St. Peters, Rome, St. Marks, Venice, Westminster Cathedral, London as well as on BBC Television. The choir sings a range of music from sacred to secular, classic to modern.
The Dance Company was founded in September 2003. The company has taken part in a variety of events in and around Chelmsford and has an role in supporting the Dance Department within the School.
Each year the Senior School puts on a production just before Christmas. Productions have included Footloose, Shakespeare in Love, Oliver, Othello and West Side Story. Productions by the drama and theatre studies students have included Woyzeck, Waiting for Godot, Teechers, Arabian Nights and Grimm Tales.
The school has several performance spaces: the Eaton Theatre; two studios in Walkfares; Jubilee Hall; and the outdoors Walkfares Canopy.
Past headmistresses and principals
At Liege and then in England it can be assumed that the Prioress was also in charge of the school. At some unknown stage a First Mistress became a quasi-Headmistress in the school under the Prioress. The term headmistress was first used in 1942 and the term principal from 2005.
This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations.(September 2023)
Former pupils are known as "Old Fishes" or "New Hallians". The term Old Fishes was used for former pupils from as early as 1799. At the time of Catholic persecution in mainland Europe, the founding Religious Community were forced to leave the Low Countries and to move to England. Whilst they were seeking a suitable venue in England, the nuns used the word "Fishes" as a code word for students and the term eventually stuck.[20]
