The school changed its name to The Abbey School in 1913, after parting from the Church Schools' Company. The name was chosen to commemorate a former Reading school dating from 1835, which was based in the Abbey Gateway. A previous school in the Abbey Gateway operating in the 18th-century, named Reading Ladies’ Boarding School, included Jane Austen among its pupils. The Abbey is now a day school, after ceasing to accept boarding pupils in 1946, and was a direct grant (C. of E.) grammar school in the 1950s . The headmistress is Mrs Rachel Dent.