STUDENTS at Canford School are celebrating after receiving 16 offers to study at Oxford or Cambridge this year.

Subjects range from geography, biochemisty and medicine to engineering, classics and experimental psychology.

Eleven of the offers are from Oxford and five from Cambridge.

Head teacher John Lever said: “This wonderful perform- ance reflects the broad intellectual fare that pupils are offered throughout their time here. “Academic life at Canford is not about exam performance so much as the nurturing of energetic and interesting minds. The latter inevitably feeds the former and makes our pupils attractive to world class universities.”

The school is also celebrating after a glowing report by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. An inspection team visiting the Wimborne school in January said it had “a very high quality of education” and “stimulating and challenging teaching”.

Mr Lever added: “I am delighted that the ISI has praised the quality of Canford education so wholeheartedly. We work extremely hard to marry excellence and breadth and it is very gratifying that outside experts find us achieving this.”