The John Fisher School

The John Fisher School is a Roman Catholic voluntary-aided boys' faith school based at Peaks Hill, Purley, Croydon, Surrey, England. The school is located in and funded by the London Borough of Sutton. It occupies the former site of the 19th-century prep school Falconbury School. The school operates as a faith (Roman Catholic) comprehensive School, educating boys mainly from south and central Croydon. It has a history of selection, and (as a selective entry grant-maintained school, and before that as a fee-paying boys’ grammar school) has drawn pupils from across London and South East England. The school has operated selective admissions policies twice in its history, from when it was founded in 1929 until 1977, and more recently from 1991 to 2008. It was, alongside the London Oratory School, one of the last selective entry Catholic comprehensive schools to defy the Schools' Admissions Code by continuing to interview prospective pupils and their parents. There have been no parental interviews since 2008, with the final cohort of boys selected by interview leaving the school in the Summer of 2014. The school has grown since the end of its selection policy from 700 pupils to over 1000, and was set to grow even more beginning in 2016 (30 additional places). History The John Fisher School was founded by Peter Emmanuel Amigo, Archbishop of Southwark, in 1929 at Duppas Hill in Croydon, and moved in 1931 to its current premises in Peaks Hill, Purley. It is the only currently-open school named after Saint John Fisher that was founded before his canonization in 1935. This is indicated by the absence of "Saint" from the school name. At the start of the 1970s the John Fisher School was a diocesan grammar school with an intake of fee-paying and non-fee-paying children. It had a small number of boarders until 1970 when a decision was made to end this facility. In 1977 it became an all-ability comprehensive school maintained by the London Borough of Sutton.