Portsmouth Abbey School is a private, coeucational boarding and day school for grades 9 through 12, located in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Founded by a group of Benedictine monks in 1926, the school, then known as the Portsmouth Priory offered a classical education to boys. Using the British "public" school model, the Priory School employed a form system, and supplemented a student's education with athletics after classes. Portsmouth's education has always been grounded in the classics, and has recently grown to include a humanities curriculum as part of a student's fourth form, or sophomore, year. In 1969, the Portsmouth Priory gained new status as the Portsmouth Abbey, denoting the increased size of its monastic community. It is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.