Leys School

The Leys School is a co-educational independent school in Cambridge, England. It is a day and boarding school for about 574 pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen, and a member of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference.

The school opened on 16 February 1875 with sixteen boys, all from English Methodist families. After two years there were 100 pupils.

During the twentieth century, The Leys grew significantly and by 1930 the number of pupils had reached 271. During World War Two, the school temporarily moved to the Atholl Palace Hotel in Pitlochry, Scotland, returning to Cambridge in 1946. During the Cold War, the school was designated the auxiliary headquarters to the Regional Seat of Government for Cambridge in time of war. Today the majority of the pupils are boarders and since the admission of girls to the Sixth Form in the 1980s, the school has become fully co-educational. It now accepts pupils from the age of eleven, rather than the age of thirteen as it was before.

Due to its location, the school is popular with Cambridge academics as a place to send their children, as well as a place to teach. For example the physicist Stephen Hawking sent his son to the school and gave a number of talks to its pupils.