@TheOxStu
Michaelmas Term, Week 5 | Friday 14th Nov 2025
OXFORD STUDENT The
The University of Oxford’s Student Newspaper, est. 1991
Picture this: Le Violon d’Ingres Read more on page 16
Oxbridge “Silicon Valley” receives £500m investment
A no (wo)man’s land. Plastic surgery and anti-feminism.
Cutout Here
Read more on page 19
Read more on page 5
Bed bugs affect Brasenose rooms Ananya Parakh
B
rasenose college has been reportedly affected by a bed bug infestation at the Frewin Court site. Rooms in Staircase 17 and 19 were said to be infestated in the last week of August, and again in October, Week 2 of term.
Magdalen College, Oxford. Image credit: Ed Webster via Wikimedia Commons
Magdalen-owned school deemed inadequate by Ofsted Will Lawrence
M
agdalen College School, a comprehensive secondary school in Brackley, Northamptonshire, has “failed to provide pupils with an acceptable standard of education”, according to the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). Ofsted specifically said that the management of the school, of which Magdalen College, Oxford is partly responsible, is “inadequate”, alongside the quality of education, to which Ofsted said that “pupil outcomes [at GCSE level] are too low”. Additionally, the same report states that pupils do not report the use of discriminatory language because they feel “the school will not do anything about it”. Magdalen College School
Brackley said that they acknowledged the outcome of the report and that a “rapid action plan” was being implemented. The headteacher has since been removed by the trust. Magdalen College founded the school in 1548, initially as an evacuation site for students escaping Oxford during the plague. For the majority of its initial history, Magdalen College handled the education of local students on the site from Brackley when it was not in use by Oxford students. While the school became a comprehensive school — and later an academy — in 1973 by merging with another local school, the school still has significant links to Magdalen College. For example, as of 2024, Magdalen appoints 3 fellows of the college to the governing board, giving them significant
minority influence over the school. A former student of the school told The Oxford Student that allegedly Magdalen College is “not doing anything” to help the school, and that “[Magdalen] totally ignores it”. Additionally, the school currently leases part of their land and buildings (specifically the St John’s site) from Magdalen College, which retains ultimate control and ownership. A former student described the conditions in the school as “dilapidated”. (is there a better source that verifies this? In contrast, Magdalen College had the second largest endowment of any Oxford college, £787.2 million in 2024, narrowly beating Christ Church (£787.1 million in 2024).
Continued on page 4. Read more at www.oxfordstudent.
After the two separate sets of complaints from the affected students over the summer, the pest control team claimed to not find signs of the presence of bed bugs upon initial inspection of either room. On being presented with pictorial evidence from one of the students,
the team allegedly re-inspected the room and confirmed its presence. A heat treatment was carried out for both students after this second inspection. The student alleged that a staff member described the fumigation process as “expensive” when asked about it. The Accommodation Team claimed in response to this: “ Regarding the cost of treatment, we mentioned it only to clarify that Brasenose College absorbs these expenses rather than passing them on to students, which is not the case at all institutions. Continued on page 4
Features
An Oxford college ranking by Oxonians Esme Thomson
As we slowly begin to wave goodbye to 2025 (and our academic sanity), what better way to wrap up Week 5 then with a College Ranking? The OxStu asked – and Oxford delivered. We grilled participants on what their favourite and least colleges were (aside from their own, though some college loyalists could not be dissuaded). The results and the reasons behind them were varied, and of-
ten questionable, but here they are… Firstly, let’s start with the honourable mentions. When discussing second or third favourite colleges, security troubles were often a positive aspect to many voters. One voter explained: “Harris Manchester cos there’s no security and the pool table is top tier.” Another recalls “St Peters – the philosophy tutor there wore a monocle during my interview”. Continued on page 13
St Peter’s College, Oxford. Image credit: Canqi Li