The ISI inspection report of the Dragon School published earlier this year found the pupils to be well educated and extremely successful in all aspects of their learning. Finding the boys and girls to be confident and friendly, the inspectors noted a well developed sense of their place as global citizens.

The Dragon’s extensive all round academic education, which incorporates energetic sporting and diverse cultural programmes, also includes a practical understanding of large concepts such as philanthropy and ecology.

This culture of active and wide learning encourages every child to develop to the best of his or her abilities and offers a host of opportunities for discovery and adventure.

The school community is local, national and international. Boarding and day children blend together and appreciate getting to know friends from Oxford, London and around the world and happily take the many opportunities the school offers to travel and explore at home and abroad. Teaching staff, too, represent a diverse range of expertise, academic backgrounds and international experience which might more usually be found in senior schools.

Exam success at the Dragon demonstrates the breadth of the education offered and the achievement of the pupils who go on to the country’s top independent senior schools.

Last year, 37 individual awards and scholarships were won by Year 8 Dragon boys and girls, bringing the total over the last three years to 138. As well as academic awards to excellent schools, Dragons won many accolades in sport, music and art.

A third of children at the Dragon board at the school. The family-style junior boarding in traditional North Oxford houses is a particular feature of the school.

Although many of the boarders have homes within an hour’s drive of Oxford, parents and children agree that for busy parents and active children boarding offers the best of both worlds at school and at home. In fact boarding is so popular that the school has just opened an extra boarding house, in response to demand, for Year 6 girls who are very happy in their new home at school.

Founded by Oxford University dons for their own children, the Dragon has taught the children of academics and Oxford families for many generations.

The school today welcomes pupils from a wide range of backgrounds who thrive at this outstanding and successful school.

In recognition of the fact that the rise in the real cost of all school fees means that many parents who would have chosen the Dragon for their children in former times cannot do so today, the school offers schemes to assist with fees.

Bursaries, which take family financial circumstances into account, can cover up to 100 per cent of the cost of fees. Academic awards, given to those of outstanding promise, can be worth up to 50 per cent of fees.

Both schemes run in the autumn each year and the school welcomes enquiries from parents about these exceptional educational opportunities.