East Cranmore, Somerset
Headmaster: Trevor Richards Takes: boys and girls, 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 for those who want it. Headmaster Trevor Richards is an educational psychologist and has been at the school in various roles for over three decades. Parental involvement is an important element of the school’s ethos which is to create an intimate, familial environment for students.
Day fees: up to £6,545 per term Full boarding fees: £9,900 per term
Ludlow
Headmaster: Brendan Brady Takes: boys and girls, 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. 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 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 are not Catholic.
Day fees: £2,385 to £6,610 per term (Reception to Year 8) Boarder fees: £8,185 to £9,805 per term
South Kensington
Headmaster: Alexander Thomas Takes: boys, aged 7-11
A school for only 110 boys, St Philip’s offers a “traditional, Catholic, liberal education that combines the very best of the world in the pursuit of timeless excellence”, according to headmaster Alexander Thomas, who is also keen on good manners and tidy uniforms.
Parents are delighted with the school which, though small, caters for individuals with distinctive interests; the boys recently set up an ornithology club.
Although based in central London, boys have access to several acres of sports fields where they play football, rugby, hockey and cricket. The most popular schools for leavers since 2010 have been Harrow, Ampleforth, Dulwich, Eton, St Paul’s, Wetherby Senior, Winchester and Westminster.
Day fees: £7,450 per term
Oxfordshire
Headmaster: Andrew De Silva Takes: boys and girls, aged 2 to 13
Rated excellent in its most recent ISI inspection, this 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 welcomed 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.
“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 £9,910 per term Day fees: up to £6,635 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. The school 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 that this may change with flexi-boarding being introduced.
Day fees: Up to £5,155 per term
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