A tale of two abbeys

Twenty years ago, Douai, a monastic boarding school in West Berkshire, shocked parents with an announcement that it was ‘no longer viable’. Pupil numbers had fallen through the floor — below 200 — and the sums didn’t add up. So four centuries of history were brought to an end and the boys were sent packing. Now those in the know worry about two more prestigious institutions — Ampleforth, the so-called Catholic Eton in North Yorkshire, and Downside, its more modest Somerset relation.

As a former pupil of the latter I’ve been hoping the rumours are unfounded. The school, like Ampleforth, is a remarkable place that produces nice, well-rounded boys and girls. The monks, for the most part, are decent men, trying to live their vocations faithfully. I followed my two older brothers to Downside and, after the school started taking girls in 2005, my younger sister went too, and flourished. But for all my gratitude to the monks, I fear for them.

The signs are not good. Late last month, the TES revealed that Ampleforth had been issued with an official warning notice from the Department for Education. The government’s letter, dated 11 May, said that if the school did not come up with an action plan to bring its child protection standards up to scratch, and sort out its leadership and management, ‘the Secretary of State may remove the school from the Register of Independent Schools’. In DfE speak, this means shut the place down. Thankfully, the school came up with a plan in time and is ‘implementing agreed actions’ before the inspectors call again.

But this indicates the scale of a more general crisis. First of all, pupil numbers at both Ampleforth and Downside are dwindling. At Ampleforth, the total headcount has shrunk from 611 in 2013 to 546 this year: not a good sign, though not yet disastrous (it dropped to 480 in the early 1990s and recovered).