St Clare's, Oxford

After the Second World War, Anne Dreydel OBE and Pamela Morris created St. Clare's, Oxford as a means of fostering relationships between British and European students. The Oxford English Centre for Foreign Students was the original name; St. Clare's Hall and St. Clare's, Oxford followed. The College expanded swiftly to include a wide spectrum of nationalities and programmes at the pre-university and collegiate levels as well as in English. The majority of the students in the mid-1950s were from the UK and about a dozen Western European nations. The IB programme alone now has representation from 50 different countries. In the beginning, the College also offered shorter summer courses in addition to lengthier courses of study. The University of London external degrees that were previously taught were gradually replaced by formal agreements that allowed American university students to earn credit toward their US degrees by studying abroad at St. Clare's starting in the 1970s. Links with universities in the United States date back to the 1960s. The College was the 41st institution in the world to provide the International Baccalaureate Diploma to pre-university students in 1977. Only 13 other institutions in the world have more experience teaching the IB than we do. A Levels were gradually phased out as the IB gained popularity, and we are currently the English IB World School with the longest history. St. Clare's, Oxford, still adheres to its original purpose of promoting global education and understanding.