Collingham College is a private, co-educational school, founded as Collingham Tutors in 1975, by Old Etonian John Marsden and Nicholas Browne. The Sixth Form is situated in London's Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is directly between Earl's Court and Gloucester Road stations, both served by the District and the Piccadilly lines. Collingham's campus includes the sixth form building at 23 Collingham Gardens, and the GCSE school occupying a Georgian townhouse on Young Street by Kensington Palace, once home to the author William Thackeray. The college is still privately owned with the current Directors being the son and grandson of its founders.
True to its founding principles, Collingham prides itself as being a home for independent minds — a school where bright, curious, unconventional thinkers find space to belong and space to excel. Classes are small, lessons are long and discussion and debate is encouraged. Each year, students move on to some of the UK's top universities.
The Principal of Collingham is James Allder BA.
Many of the tutors at Collingham are expert academics, who join the school after professional careers in their field. Mock admissions tests and interviews are available for Oxbridge applicants. There are about two hundred and fifty students at Collingham. Students come from a range of academic abilities and backgrounds, with many joining from public schools. They run Christmas and Easter revision courses near to exams which are available to the public.
According to the Good Schools Guide, "You go to Collingham for two things - the academics and the sense of being independent while, in reality, being nurtured and carefully monitored. The level of support given to students is exceptional, reflected in a growth of confidence and the desire to succeed." Collingham's sixth form was originally Gibbs' Preparatory School whose former pupils include Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy and Frederick Tennyson.
Contents
The Boltons Garden Party
Collingham students support and attend the annual St Mary The Boltons summer fair, held in The Boltons garden square every June.
Alumni
(Collingham and as it was previously known Gibbs Prep)
Royalty and Nobility
Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh
David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon
Thomas Corbett, 2nd Baron Rowallan, British Army Officer, Grenadier Guards
Anthony Havelock-Allan, 4th Baronet
Politicians
Ted Kennedy
Allan Henry Hoover
Herbert Hoover Jr.
Claiborne Pell
The Lord Grimond
John Profumo
Film directors and actors
Frederick Tennyson
Sir Peter Ustinov
Richard Armitage
Anthony Asquith
Minnie Driver
Novelists
Sir John Mortimer
Christopher Robin Milne, the inspiration for Christopher Robin from Winnie-the-Pooh
Anthony Powell
Other
Sir Richard Doll FRS, Epidemiologist
Georgia May Jagger, designer, model, and socialite
Matthew Warburton