Ampleforth College is a Catholic and Benedictine school. The life of the school centres upon the life of prayer of the Benedictine Community, whose roots go back to pre-Reformation Westminster Abbey, and it is the values of faith, prayer and community expressed in the Rule of St Benedict which is the inspiration of the school at the most fundamental level: that the strong should be given something to strive for and the weak should not be over-burdened. A Benedictine school looks to the good of all that come to it, to provide a demanding (and therefore enjoyable) education for the talented and ambitious, but also encouraging the less able to achieve beyond their fears and doubts. Each boy is asked for his best, and first of all in a precise and obvious context: his academic work. Academic rigour and good order are the guarantees of intellectual progress and true freedom. A boy at Ampleforth has all the advantages of a strong community life, based on the family of the House, a broad curriculum and first class facilities. Boys are encouraged to combine interests, so that members of the 1st XV may also be active in a first class music department or a lively theatre. A boy with a place at Oxford may be working enthusiastically in his free time for an East European charity - and meeting boys on short-term bursaries from those same countries. Among his friends might be a boy who has struggled with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. Throughout their time in the school, boys have placed before them in a theology course taught to the same level as their secular studies the challenge of the faith to which they are called, but which can only be accepted and grown into by their free response.
