Haberdashers' Adams

Adams was rated by Ofsted as a Grade 1 outstanding school during 2013.[11] More recently, the school has been scored as average with a Progress 8 score of −0.02 by the Department for Education.[12] In 2022, Adams was rated Good by Ofsted.

Adams operates an extra-curricular house system and is the basis of inter-house sports competitions, traditionally a source of pride for pupils of their respective houses (all named after Shropshire-born notables):

• Owen House, named after Wilfred Owen, one of the leading poets of the First World War (born near Oswestry) sports scarlet as its colours. This house was called Clive House after Robert Clive of India until 2021 when it was renamed after criticism arose of Robert Clive in light of the George Floyd protests.[14]
• Darwin House, traditionally sports royal blue and is named after Shrewsbury-born Charles Darwin, the celebrated 19th-century naturalist.
• Talbot House, the last of the three original "Salopian" houses, traditionally displays black and white (arranged in hoops, e.g. on rugby jerseys) as its sporting colours; it is named after Whitchurch-born "Old Talbot" (Sir John Talbot, later Earl of Shrewsbury) of the famous local Talbot family and one of the foremost English military commanders of the French medieval wars.
• Webb House, was founded in 1994 and assumed emerald green as its distinguishing colours; it is named after Dawley-born merchant naval officer and accomplished swimmer, Captain Matthew Webb.[15]
• Sa'adu House, the newest house being announced in 2020 and being formed in the school year starting 2021, named after NHS worker and Old Novaportan who died during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alfa Sa'adu, assuming purple as its house colour.

Throughout the academic year there are many house events, revolving around the arts, sports or academic subjects. These include the House Music Competition; Dixon Cup, which covers drama and public speaking; Smedley Cup and House 7s, which are both rugby competitions; and other sports competitions such as House Cross Country and House Swimming. Intra-house geography, history, poetry and languages competitions also take place.

Adams' GS Longford Hall site viewed from the 1st XV rugby pitch

The school owns a number of dedicated boarding houses. The present junior hall (Longford Hall) is located by the school's playing fields about a mile away. In 2017 the Haberdashers' enabled the school to purchase and re-furbish Beaumaris Court, a former care home, to become the school's new senior boarding house, Beaumaris Hall. This new facility replaced the three senior boys' boarding houses which were situated in large Georgian townhouses facing the High Street.

Longford Hall was built in 1785 for Colonel Ralph Leeke, political agent to the British East India Company; the building was designed by Joseph Bonomi, who was an associate of Robert and James Adam.

AGS' Georgian-era senior boarding houses near Big School on Lower Bar (in use until September 2017)

The hall is located on top of a low rise and overlooks farmland towards the Lilleshall Monument. As with many such buildings, the first 100 feet in front of the hall comprises manicured grass, bordered by a ha-ha to prevent animals from entering; today the ha-ha is best known amongst pupils for forming a part of the school's annual house cross-country course. There are a small series of formal gardens, including a "Quad". Behind the hall is a selection of buildings around a central square including a dovecote, once part of the estate's home farm.

Upon entry into the school in year 7, boarders are assigned to dormitories; upon moving to Beaumaris Court boys are often assigned to double or, in some cases, single rooms.

The school's CCF is available to year 8 students and above, as a result of which the school sends many officer candidate students to Sandhurst, Royal Air Force College Cranwell and the Britannia Royal Naval College. The CCF also plays a role in Newport civic life, parading every year on Remembrance Sunday. The CCF recruits each January from the Second Form and with cadets passing out in May of the same year.

The Corps has its own building where its stores are housed and NCO meetings and some lessons take place. The Corps frequently holds Overnight Exercises where battle drills and fieldcraft are practised; these are held either at Longford Hall, Nesscliffe Training Area or ROF Swynnerton. Until 2017, when the Sixth Form went on study leave, the CCF prepared for the Annual House CCF Competition, known as The Thompstone Trophy, after Lt-Col Brian Thompstone; this entailed a Drill Competition, Shooting, Command Tasks, Memory Games, Forces-related Quizzes, Section Attacks, CQB and an OBS course. The Corps is inspected every two years (the Biennial Inspection) by a senior Army or RAF officer.

Both the Army and RAF sections of the CCF hold Summer Camps every year, visiting working military bases such as RAF Cranwell and Barry Buddon Training Area. Cadets can also attend Adventure Training Camps held annually at Llanbedr and Windermere, Easter Camps at RAF Akrotiri, Summer Camps at Ramstein Air Base and Leadership Courses at RAF Cranwell, Nesscliffe Training Area or at Frimley Park. Additionally, cadets also have the opportunity of attending special events such as the 65th D-Day Landing Commemorations and the Cadet 150 Celebrations.[16]

Adams has traditionally been a rugby school, and as such requires all boys play rugby through years seven and eight during the autumn and spring terms. Upon entry into year nine, pupils are presented with the option of continuing to play rugby, or switching to field hockey. Cricket and athletics are the main sports disciplines undertaken during the shorter summer term. In year 11 and the sixth form, boys are often presented with the opportunity to take part in any sport of their choice, provided they can receive permission for such an activity. With the exception of those activities not provided by the school, all sporting events, and training therefore takes place at the school's Longford Hall playing fields; for this reason, few visiting sports teams ever see the Main School site. Adams operates a system of games afternoons, a system by which each individual year group is assigned a specific day of the week to attend afternoon physical activity sessions at Longford (for this purpose the sixth Form is combined with year 11).

In the early 21st century, football was reintroduced to the school after an absence of almost 100 years.

As with many private and grammar schools, Adams organises biennial summer tours abroad for its senior rugby, hockey and girls netball teams. Recent tours have included rugby tours to South Africa, South America, Australia and Singapore, and a hockey and netball tour to Barbados. The school is also keen upon further developing it's cricket and widening opportunities for boys.

• Piers Corbyn (born 1947) — weather forecaster, businessman, activist, anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist
• Donald Court (1912–1994) – James Spence Professor of Child Health at Newcastle University (1955–72) and former President of the British Paediatric Association[18]
• William Cureton (1808–1864) – orientalist
• Dave Goulson (born 1965) – professor of biology (evolution, behaviour and environment) at the University of Sussex, expert on bumblebees and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust
• Thomas Hollis (1720–1774) – benefactor of Harvard University, political propagandist, patron of Canaletto among other artists
• Helmut Koenigsberger (1918–2014) – professor of history, King's College, London, 1973–84, later emeritus.
• Sir Oliver Lodge (1851–1940)– inventor & first principal of Birmingham University
• Stuart Meeson (born 1972 in Newport) – physicist in Electrical Impedance Tomography and Mammography
• James E. Quibell (1867–1935) – archaeologist and leading British Egyptologist
• Maurice Stacey (1907–94) – worked alongside Sir Norman Haworth to artificially synthesize vitamin C

• Robert Charnock (1663–1696) – Dean of Magdalen College, Oxford, conspirator who planned to kill King William III
• Silvester Horne (1865–1914) – MP for Ipswich, Congregationalist Minister, and father of Kenneth Horne
• Gerald Lander (1861–1934) – Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong
• Thomas Percy (1729–1811) – became Bishop of Dromore, wrote Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765

• M. J. Bassett – film director and scriptwriter
• Simon Bates (born 1946) – radio disc jockey
• Barrington J. Bayley (1937–2008) – science fiction writer
• Tom Brown (1662–1704)– satirist
• Radzi Chinyanganya (born 1987) – TV presenter[19]
• Ewen Henderson (1934–2000) – sculptor
• Norman Jones (1932–2013)
• Eliot Higgins (born 1979) – investigative journalist, founder of Bellingcat

• Peter Butler (born 1951) – former Conservative MP for North East Milton Keynes from 1992 to 1997, and current chief executive of Flying Scotsman plc
• Jeremy Corbyn (born 1949) – Labour MP for Islington North since 1983, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020[20]
• Nick Jenkins (born 1967) – chief executive of moonpig.com, former Glencore commodities trader.[21]
• John Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Gower (1694–1754) – Lord Privy Seal 1742–54, and first senior Tory member of government since George I of Great Britain's coronation in 1714
• Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield (1666–1732) – Lord Chancellor and Acting Regent of Great Britain

• Captain Thomas Ashburnham (1855–1924) – 6th Earl of Ashburnham[22]
• General George Colt Langley (1810–96) – General, Royal Marines
• Matthew Smith (ca.1665-ca.1723) – 17th-century spy, intriguer and writer
• Sir Charles Buckworth-Herne-Soame Bt (1864–1931) 10th Baronet
• Major-General Francis Ventris (1857–1929) – General Officer Commanding British Forces in China

• Cedric Boyns (born 1954) - cricket player for Shropshire and Worcestershire County Cricket Clubs.[23]
• Peter Ranells (born 1954) - cricket player for Shropshire.
• Graham Kitchener (born 1989) – rugby player for Worcester Warriors and England[24]
• Dan Redfern (born 1990) – cricket player for Shropshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire County Cricket Clubs[25][26]
• Peter Short (born 1979) – rugby player for Bath Rugby and England Saxons[24]

• Ryan Palmer (born 1974) – maths teacher and ex-Jamaican national chess champion
• Agnes Miller Parker (1895–1980) – former art teacher, engraver and illustrator
• Alec Peterson (1908–1988) – former headmaster, founder of the International Baccalaureate
• Donald Fear – history and government and politics teacher, the sixth person ever to win £1,000,000 on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? in 2020