East Cranmore, Somerset
Headmaster: Trevor Richards
Takes: girls and boys, aged 3-13
Home to 400 pupils, All Hallows has good academic results and impressive art and music departments. Individual interests are nurtured and children are encouraged to enjoy every aspect of school life, including the faith element, with Holy Communion preparation timetabled in for those who want it. Unusually, headmaster Trevor Richards is an educational psychologist, not a teacher, by background, and mental wellbeing is taken seriously. Parental involvement is an important element of the school’s ethos which is to create an intimate, familial environment for students.
Day fees: £2,860 to £5,560 per term
Full boarding fees: £8,420 per term
Ludlow
Headmaster: Brendan Brady
Takes: girls and boys, aged 3 months-13
Moor Park is a co-ed, Catholic independent boarding and day school with 85 rolling acres just outside Ludlow on the Shropshire and Herefordshire border. The school was the former red-brick country house of the Salwey family and was started in 1964 by Derek Henderson and Hugh Watts, friends from Downside before the war and both exceptional cricketers. Henderson’s study was crammed with Wisdens and cans of oil for boys to oil their bats before school matches.
Today the headmaster’s study no longer reeks of linseed but the founders’ ethos is very much intact. Framed by the entrance of the school chapel are the seven commandments of Henderson. They include: “Look for the best in people; never be rude or hate; don’t bear a grudge; and make the most of all that life has to offer… and always say your prayers”. Kindness and good manners are very much part of the school’s value system with high academic, sporting and music standards. A portrait of St Thomas More hangs in the chapel.
The ethos of the founders still resonates today. That is about “finding the best in every child” and the idea that “it is our job to discover the very best in every pupil”. Unusually for a prep school, Moor Park is independent of any senior school. It attracts locals as well as pupils from all over the country, including boarders from France and Spain because of the Catholic link. The school has also taken in seven Ukrainians since April 2022.
The most recent ISI inspection report rated the school as excellent in all areas, stating: “the moral awareness of the pupils, underpinned by the school’s Catholic ethos, is extremely well-developed”. All pupils attend Mass in the school chapel on a Sunday, although the majority these days is not Catholic. The school has an exceptional new design and technology centre which is run by Ludlow artist and wood carver Andy Pearson; the art department is also exceptional. Many children have won art scholarships and the school has a strong creative environment.
Brendan Brady has this September taken over from Charlie Minogue as headmaster. A highly experienced headmaster from South Africa, he has recently stepped down as the head of St Andrew’s Prep in Grahamstown, after six years. Prior to that, he was headmaster of Applewood Prep, and Clifton Prep before that, where he was appointed in 2000, aged 33.
A history teacher by trade, Brady will teach the subject at Moor Park and hopes to get involved with school sport, especially cricket (where he has already been playing for a local side) and tennis, if he can find the time. He is a Methodist, although his mother was Catholic.
Brady is prepared for the challenges that will come with running an independent school during a cost of living crisis which is only really just starting. He has been using the past few months to “understand the budget, the culture and ethos of the school, getting to know individual staff members, the estate, the needs of the school and the marketing programme,” he says. The school offers means-tested bursaries and scholarships, which come with a fee reduction of up to 30 per cent.
At the beginning of the school holidays, Brady had already visited 19 senior schools, seeing this as an absolute priority in the job. “I have to get to know what their ethos is like so I can give sensible advice to parents,” he explains. Pupils go on to top schools such as St Mary’s Ascot, Ampleforth and Eton, often with scholarships.
Day fees: £2,385 to £6,610 per term (Reception to Year 8)
Boarder fees: £8,185 to £9,805 per term
Oxfordshire
Headmaster: Andrew De Silva
Takes: boys and girls, aged 2 to 13
This happy, thriving independent day and boarding school is based in the Oxfordshire countryside in 65 acres, with top-end facilities and its own extensive woodland, ponds and adventure pIaygrounds.
Catholic values are central to school life. The school is also rightly proud of its scholarship and leadership programmes which help students to secure consistently high grades and impressive scholarship awards to some of the country’s top senior schools.
Outdoor learning, including a dedicated forest school with weekly lessons for every age group, is an important part of life at the school. There are also many performing arts opportunities, including LAMDA from Year 1, instrument and vocal tuition and musical and drama productions.
The co-curricular programme covers everything from fencing to cookery, and there is also a diverse Saturday enrichment programme for children in Year 5 upwards, including modules in debating, interview and presentation skills, orienteering and beekeeping.Sports facilities include a learner pool, a 25-metre heated indoor swimming pool, full-size 3G pitch, four tennis courts and multiple pitches. In September 2022, the school welcomes a new headmaster, Andrew De Silva, who was previously headmaster of the Junior School at St Edmund’s School, Canterbury. In addition to this role, Mr De Silva is also chair of IAPS (Independent Association of Preparatory Schools) District 2 and of the newly-formed IAPs EDI group (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion).
“Andrew brings with him a wealth of experience, honing his skills through headships in both the state maintained and independent sectors, in addition to a master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Management and the NPQH (National Professional Qualification for Headship),” says the school.
The Oratory is looking forward to launching its new senior prep curriculum this September.
“Our curriculum is centred around building an interconnected approach to learning that develops pupils’ key knowledge and understanding of the world around them, whilst being meaningful and relevant to their everyday experiences.”
Boarding fees £9,050 per term
Day fees: up to £6,200 per term
London
Headmaster: Neil McLaughlan
Takes: boys, aged 4-13
WCCS is an academically selective boys prep school in Victoria, London. Boys, of whom there are around 265 aged four to 13, go on to some of Britain’s best schools, including Eton, Winchester, Worth and St Paul’s, often with scholarships.
The school has 20 weekly boarding choristers who join in Year 4, all of whom must be baptised and practising Catholics.
Under headmaster Neil McLaughlan the school has developed its own modern liberal arts education, based upon the “three Cs” of curriculum, canon and character. Boys are taught Classics from Year 4 and the school has an outstanding English department; pupils are asked to memorise poetry by Shakespeare, Milton, Eliot and Keats as part of their studies.
Day fees: up to £7,564 per term; Choristers (boarders) £3,600 per term
Kidderminster
Headmistress: Denise Toms
Takes: boys and girls, aged 3 months-13 years
Winterfold House School is an outstanding smaller prep school with a long and peripatetic Catholic heritage set in 40 acres of grounds. The main building is a Georgian mansion with views of the Malvern Hills. The Catholic headmistress Denise Toms is a charismatic and focused history teacher who has been at the school for 20 years. She is assisted by her affable deputy Ross Mitchell, whose own children are at the school. The main cricket pitch boasts a pavilion that could be a royal beach hut in Brighton. It has its own golf course and a new £1-million-plus multi-weather sports field. This is thanks to the resources that go with being part of the Bromsgrove School family. There is also a school radio studio, a dedicated chapel (around 20 per cent of the school are Catholic), a cookery school and vegetable garden. There is also a new ‘Forest School’ where older pupils camp and children can sit in hides and develop their photography skills whilst researching Latin names of birds on their iPads. School adventure trips are taken to Dorset, the Wye Valley and Snowdon. There’s even a Scalextric track room. Religious education is taken seriously along with academic excellence and special needs. The honour boards tell the story of how the school has evolved since being founded in 1928. After the war, it was a feeder to Downside, Ampleforth and Stonyhurst but now it is more Malvern and Midland schools.
Mass is celebrated every Thursday and there is a grotto dedicated to Our Lady in the grounds. No boarding although there has been talk this may change with flexi-boarding being introduced.
Day fees: £3,010 to £4,820 per term
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