The Oratory School is an HMC co-educational private Roman Catholic boarding and day school for pupils aged 11–18 located in Woodcote, 6 miles (9.7 km) north-west of Reading, England. Founded in 1859 by Saint John Henry Newman, The Oratory has historical ties to the Birmingham Oratory and the London Oratory School. Although a separate entity from the nearby Oratory Preparatory School, it shares a common history. Newman founded the school with the intention of providing boys with a Roman Catholic alternative to Eton College. Until 2020, when it first admitted girls, it was the only boys’ Roman Catholic public school left in the United Kingdom. According to the Good Schools Guide, the school is “an active choice for families looking for a small, nurturing environment."

John Henry Newman was an English theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardinal, who was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s, and was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.