- About MCS
MCS ranks among the top independent secondary schools in The Sunday Times Schools Guide 2024, placed seventh nationally and third in the Southeast. - Admissions
Approximately 1 in 10 pupils receive a bursary or scholarship. We are committed to ensuring an MCS education is open to the brightest pupils, no matter their personal circumstances.
- Junior School
“The Junior School is a very busy and happy school and here, a smile goes a long way.”
MCS ranks among the top independent secondary schools in The Sunday Times Schools Guide 2024, placed seventh nationally and third in the Southeast.
- Senior School
39 of our pupils achieved 10 or more 8 or 9 grades in 2023. - Sixth Form
Over 25% of our Sixth Form pupils take up places at Oxford and Cambridge every year.
- Supporting MCS
Your donations contribute over £150,000 a year to bursaries as well as building an endowment to fund bursaries for the future.
39 of our pupils achieved 10 or more 8 or 9 grades in 2023.
Your donations contribute over £150,000 a year to bursaries as well as building an - About MCS
MCS ranks among the top independent secondary schools in The Sunday Times Schools Guide 2024, placed seventh nationally and third in the Southeast.
- Admissions
Approximately 1 in 10 pupils receive a bursary or scholarship. We are committed to ensuring an MCS education is open to the brightest pupils, no matter their personal circumstances.
- Junior School
“The Junior School is a very busy and happy school and here, a smile goes a long way.”
- Senior School
39 of our pupils achieved 10 or more 8 or 9 grades in 2023.
- Sixth Form
Over 25% of our Sixth Form pupils take up places at Oxford and Cambridge every year.
- Supporting MCS
Your donations contribute over £150,000 a year to bursaries as well as building an endowment to fund bursaries for the future.
Magdalen College School was founded in 1480 by William Waynflete so that pupils of ability could learn, flourish and serve as he did. Our aim is to remain true to Waynflete’s legacy by offering a transformative education to pupils of all backgrounds. We believe that pupils should not be limited in their ambitions by financial barriers.
By providing support to families facing financial constraints, the school not only opens its doors to a wider range of talents but also affirms itself as a place of opportunity. The MCS family is enriched by the presence of pupils from every part of our community and is truly reflective of the diverse city of Oxford.
It is by being true to our past that we secure our future path.
We are committed to securing our ability to offer life-changing education to pupils of potential through our bursary programme. We can only do that with the help of our donors.
Helen Pike, Master
Securing our Future
In 2019 the Governors set out a bold ambition to build an endowment of £15 million by 2030 – the 550th anniversary of the School’s founding. The figure chosen represents the capital sum needed to secure in perpetuity the fee assistance given at that time.
Each year approximately 1 in 10 pupils in the Senior School has financial support to attend, which equates to about 75 to 80 pupils who have some help with fees.
The need for support is greater than ever, and we are receiving more bursary applications from ever higher-calibre candidates. Our bursary fund enables us to continue to offer places to pupils from across our city, regardless of their backgrounds or circumstances.
Put simply, bursaries can and do change lives. You can learn more about their impact on our Bursary Stories page.
Join Us in Supporting MCS
Through careful fiscal management, the school makes its own contribution to the endowment fund each year. However, through these contributions alone building our £15 million endowment fund would take 25 years.
With your help, we can achieve our goal much sooner.
Our Bursary Benefactors are those who wish to endow a bursary in perpetuity through the gift of a capital sum of £450,000. Please email Susie Baker, Director of the Waynflete Office to discuss this in more detail.
We are hugely grateful to all our donors, every gift gets us closer to our target
Make a gift to support bursaries
Gifts towards our endowment fund are the focus of the 1480 Society which recognises the highest level of regular giving
Those donors who choose to leave MCS a gift in their will are recognised through the Bob Stanier Legacy Society
Our Progress
Through the generosity of our Modern Founders, members of our 1480 Society, many individual gifts and the school’s own contributions our progress has been swift.
At the end of the financial year 2021-2022 the endowment had reached £6,390,027 and we are pleased to report that since then it has passed the £7 million mark.
Our bursary fund is managed by Oxford University Endowment Management renowned for their expertise in endowment management. The aim of the fund is to preserve the real value of the endowment whilst it generates a sustainable return that the school spends on bursaries.
Below you will find more about our bursary programme including the stories of a number of our bursary pupils.
It has always been important to me that I would support bursaries. The School stood me in good stead.
Nick Turner, OW 1987
Our Modern Founders
Modern Founders are celebrated by making a gift of £1 million to the endowment. Marking the way that they have permanently established the provision of pupil places will become part of the school calendar, just as the Benefactors’ Prayer acts as a reminder of past donors at this level each year at Commem.
We will discuss with each Modern Founder how to recognise their transformational generosity through our existing school traditions on Commemoration Day, our new Founders’ Day, and in ways appropriate to MCS in its next 500 years. Each will be celebrated in our Endowment Book through the commission of an artist to create their illuminated letter.
Modern Founder
Leo Goldschmidt (1932-2022)
Leo supported bursaries at MCS throughout his lifetime and his gifts to the endowment fund exceeded £1 million. To recognise his generosity and role in the modern history of MCS, he was named as our first Modern Founder. On a visit to MCS in 2017 Leo remarked: “I made my contribution out of gratitude, not only to MCS but also to the British Government which, at the height of the War, still made it possible for a foreign and penniless refugee family to send their ten-year-old son to such a remarkable educational institution”.
Modern Founder
A gift left through the estate of OW Graham Pye who, with his wife Yvonne, was a great champion of the School, has been a major step towards our £15 million goal. Graham died in 2009, and Yvonne in 2021. Both were keen supporters of the School, as were Graham’s parents.
Modern Founder
Yvonne Pye, pictured here with the Master for the ‘topping out’ ceremony for the new Sixth Form Centre. Today’s pupils will know the names of Graham and Yvonne from the naming
of the Sixth Form Common Room in recognition of their generosity. Two pupils started at MCS in September 2022 as a result of the financial assistance made possible by the generosity of Graham and Yvonne.
