City of London Freemen's School, commonly known as CLFS and locally known as Freemen's, is an independent co-educational school located at Ashtead Park in Surrey, England. It is the sister school of the City of London School and the City of London School for Girls, both independent single-sex schools located within the City of London itself. Intake is from age 7 to 18, though many of its pupils enter at 13, and similarly join other independent schools for the sixth form (17 to 18).
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History
The school was founded by the Corporation of London and was originally located in Brixton to educate orphans of the Freemen of the City. While it is still possible for such orphan children to be educated as “Foundationers” at the school with the costs of their education borne by the Corporation of London, such instances are now rare. The school moved to its current 57 acre (231,000 m²) site at Ashtead Park in 1926, expanding to include fee-paying pupils from local families. It has recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of its relocation and the 150th anniversary of its establishment with a Thanksgiving Service at St Paul's Cathedral attended by the Lord Mayor of London in 2004.
Houses
CLFS has three Houses: Gresham, Hale and Whittington (colours green, red and blue respectively). These are named after the influential Londoners and school benefactors Sir Thomas Gresham, Warren Stormes Hale and Richard Whittington. Pupils are assigned to a House on their first day at school, which they stay in throughout their school career. Since it is predominantly a day school and there are limited numbers of boarders, Houses do not have the same connotations as in some schools, though are still important for Inter-House Competitions and weekly House Assemblies. If a sibling of a CLFS pupil was to join the school, they would be assigned to the same house.
Drama and music
With use of the newly built Ferndale Theatre and the older (but larger) Assembly Hall, the school organises a number of performances each year. Past major senior school productions include Oliver!, Cabaret (2001), Les Miserables (2003) and Into the Woods (2005). CLFS was one of the first schools in the country to obtain rights to Cameron Mackintosh's Les Miserables which ran for four nights. The whole cast, crew (and part of the orchestra) consisted of CLFS pupils. With Les Mis being a hard act to follow, the school chose the next musical: Into the Woods, (music by Stephen Sondheim). The musical for Christmas 2007 is "Oklahoma", and rehearsals start on Friday 14th of September. The school has completed "The Ragged Child" the production for Easter 2007, which was directed by Jeremy James Taylor, who wrote and directed the play in London's West End.
Feeder schools
- Danes Hill
- Downsend School
- Kingswood House School
- St. Christopher's School
- Milbourne Lodge
Famous alumni
- Andrew Garfield - Actor who recently appeared in the films Boy A and Lions for Lambs as well as the plays Romeo & Juliet, The Laramie Project, Kes and the Channel 4 show Sugar Rush.
- Joe Strummer - Lead singer of The Clash
- Warwick Davis - Short Actor, star of Willow (film), also appeared in the Star Wars and Harry Potter movie series.
The composer Robert Steadman had the role of Composer-in-Residence at CLFS in the early 1990s during which time he provided workshops, tutorials and wrote a number of new works for the school's ensembles.
External links
- Official website
- Theatre Dreams - Website maintained by the Head of Drama
