Buildings and grounds Haberdashers’ is located on the grounds of
Aldenham House, a stately home, which became the boarding house in 1961, with accommodation for 80 main school pupils, three staff, and their spouses. The Headmaster and his secretary have offices on the ground floor. Other administrative areas were housed there after boarding ended. Although the school uses the house for various purposes, teaching takes place in several buildings that have been built on the grounds, most built around the Quad, a rectangular area of grass that has restricted access to students. At its centre is
Aldenham House, a
Grade II* listed building, that was formerly the seat of the
Lords Aldenham and home to
Vicary Gibbs MP. While the school once offered boarding to some students, it has since become an all-day school, with the boarding quarters having been converted to offices. The Bourne Building, home to the largest of the school's assembly halls, the library, along with several
history,
ICT and
classics classrooms, is next to Aldenham House at the top of the Quadrangle. The library was quite recently refurbished by the school and now contains various open and screened seating areas, as well as desktop and laptop computers. A team of qualified librarians supervises the library, which serves as pupils' principal work area. On the opposite side of the Quad is the old Maths and MFL block, containing the Bates Dining Room and sixth form common room. To the left side of the Bourne Building is the Seldon (formerly TW Taylor) Music School which houses classrooms for the music department, instrumental lessons and a performance hall in the centre called the Seldon Hall which is also used for assemblies. Behind the Aske Building, lies the recently constructed multi-purpose sports complex which was opened in 2016 and formally called the Medburn Centre, the complex boasts a 24.96m swimming pool, climbing wall, gymnasium, the Medburn Hall, squash courts, new changing rooms and Joe's Café in the lobby area. The complex was connected to the older McGowan Hall which is a large sports halls used for various activities as well as exams. In June 2022, the school opened their 2 new buildings on site for core subjects, the Taylor and Hinton buildings, named after former headmasters of the school. The new buildings have state-of-the art classrooms and house the subjects:
English,
Theology and
Philosophy and
Modern Foreign Languages (in the Taylor) and
Maths and
Economics (in the Hinton). As part of the construction a new drama studio was constructed between the Taylor and Bourne buildings acting as a "bridge" and the grounds around these buildings have been uplifted from being an empty playground space with spaces like the "Lime Walk" and "Rain Garden". Behind the new buildings is the oldest building on site: the Design and Art Centre housing the
DT and
Art subjects. The lower floor has 3 distinct DT workshops and 2 DT computer labs for classes to use and the upper floor has four studios for drawing, painting, printing, sculpture, digital design, textiles and ceramics on top of a dedicated Sixth Form studio and Art and Design library. On the other side of the school is the Prep School which was extended and renovated in 2019, the newly constructed Pre-Prep school which is set to be complete for October 2022, the Penne's Changing Rooms (which are for Rugby and Cricket players who are playing on the school fields). To the right side of the Penne's is the North Drive Car Park for teachers and support staff and to the left is the Coach Park, but in front of the Penne's is the main field area.
Academic attainment The school admits pupils based upon a school-specific competitive examination (not the Common Entrance Paper) at either 11+ or 13+ (with entry into the preparatory school at 4+ or 7+).
Oxbridge offers statistics are as follows: Older averages (2001–2006) placed the school at nineteenth in the country. The school was ranked 15th by
The Sunday Times in their 2006 Parent Power feature on the best independent schools, down from 12 in the previous year. According to the
Times rankings, Habs came 12th (out of 1,150 schools) in GCSE rankings and 72nd (out of 939) at A-level, though this is largely because most boys at Habs only took three A-levels, and so received a lower total score than other comparable schools. In the same year, the
Telegraph placed Habs in 15th place based on A- and AS-level results, Similarly, at A-Level, the school gained several places and was listed at 7th in the country
Houses The school sorts the boys into one of six school houses, each house having their own 'house colour' used on the standard and house ties worn by pupils: • Calverts (orange, previously dark blue) • Hendersons (red) • Joblings (green) • Meadows (purple) • Russells (light blue) • Strouts (yellow) The names for these houses derive from the names of their original housemasters. While the school places pupils in tutor groups, these are purely for pastoral purposes and are taught in mixed, or streamed, sets. The school awards several shields at the end of the academic year for competitions between the houses. These shields include: The termly cost excludes extras such as coach fare, lunch, and instrumental lessons.
Coat of arms The school's coat of arms and motto is lent by the
Worshipful Company of Haberdashers. The
arms are
blazoned:
Barry wavy of six argent and azure on a bend gules a lion passant guardant Or, on a wreath argent and azure colours issuing from clouds two naked arms embowed holding a laurel wreath all proper, on either side a goat of India argent flecked gules and membered Or Motto:
Serve and Obey These armorial bearings, including the crest of two arms holding a wreath, were granted to the Haberdashers' Company on 8 November 1570 by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux. ==Co-curricular activities==