On a beautiful sunny morning, I made my way to the Faraday School in Trinity Buoy Wharf. Founded in 2009, Faraday is a small but growing independent primary school in East London, surrounded by converted warehouses that now serve a thriving artistic community. Faraday works on a low fee model to make an independent education affordable to as many people as possible.

The school forms part of the New Model School group that also runs the Maple Walk School in Harlesden, Northwest London. To get to the wharf, one can either take the DLR to East India Docks and walk ten minutes, or the more adventurous can take a private charter ferry from North Greenwich. Luckily for parents, the school offers two school bus routes to and from Limehouse, Wapping and Canary Wharf, among other stops and even travels south of the river to Canada Water.

Upon arrival, I met the headmistress, Mrs Susan Stark, who joined Faraday School last year after many years in British schools abroad. Any visitor will notice that Faraday School itself is very international, reflecting the diversity of families working in and around Canary Wharf. Mrs Stark even described her school not so much as a prep school (although children studying for entrance exams are supported) but as a private primary school with an international feel.

The core curriculum is traditional, with a strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy in the mornings. The school is also in the process of implementing the core knowledge curriculum, advocated by US educator E.D. Hirsch. In the afternoons, teaching is given over to drama, dance, French, PHSE and music, amongst other subjects – many of which are taught by specialist teachers. Their most recent ISI inspection rated their standard of teaching ‘excellent’.

This curriculum is greatly enhanced by using “London as a classroom”. Mrs Stark shared the many ways in which the school fosters ties with local artists and businesses to make sure the children learn from their community: children are invited to tour exhibitions by local artists, to observe their work and to perform art alongside resident artists. Pupils take many class trips to support their curriculum learning, which have included: Mud Larking on the River Thames, a trip on the Emirates Skyline, a visit to the Walking with the Dinosaurs exhibition, visiting the Tate, Museum of London Docklands and taking part in the Thames Festival.

It is one of the first schools I have seen with a roof terrace made from a recycled shipping container (not to mention one that overlooks the Wharf, a historic lighthouse and the O2 arena), which is used for break time and games (whereas PE lessons are generally held at a nearby park). The school is currently expanding, which means I only got a glimpse of what the school will look like starting this September, as several new classrooms and a dedicated playground are being built.

More information on Faraday School
Children join the Reception class in the year they turn five years old and leave for secondary education at the end of Year 6, when they are 11 years old. Children are welcomed at 8.15 a.m. and can stay at a late club for children until 5.30 p.m. The academic school day runs from 8.45 a.m. until 3.30 p.m. Fees per term for the school year 2014 / 2015 are £2,666.

Visit Faraday School
The next open mornings at the school are held on June 18th and July 3rd. Click here to sign up.

Also read…

• East London prep schools
• Affordable Private Schools in London

Most schools have published their 11+ exit results for 2014 by now, while we need to wait another month or two for Common Entrance results, as exams for boarding school entry tend to take place after half-term. But we do have the results from co-educational prep schools already, along with most girls’ schools.

Co-ed prep schools

Thomas’s Fulham have published their 11+ results already (not so the other three Thomas’s schools). About a third of 11+ leavers is transferring to Thomas’s Clapham for 13+ exit. Three girls are moving on to Godolphin and Latymer and just one to St Paul’s Girls’ School. Five boys managed to pass to King’s College Wimbledon. The total number of leavers was 46.

Pupils from Cameron House in Chelsea achieved offers from Alleyn’s, City of London School for Girls, Godolphin and Latymer, Sevenoaks, Sussex House and Westminster Under this year. Candidates at St Nicholas Prep School in South Kensington did well this year gaining offers from City of London School, King’s College, Putney High, Latymer Upper and Westminster Under.

Girls’ prep schools

Bute House did particularly well this year with 26 offers from St Paul’s Girls’ School (out of 60 candidates). There were also 10 offers from NLCS (3 of which were accepted). and 8 offers from Wycombe Abbey (3 of which accepted).

Next best this year is probably Glendower Prep School with 6 St Paul’s offers (out of 25 candidates). Kensington Prep achieved 5 St Paul’s offers (out of about 40 candidates). Pembridge Hall girls achieved 5 offers from St Paul’s (out of 60 candidates) and there were 3 offers from St Paul’s for Falkner House girls (20 candidates).

I’d love to include North London prep schools as well but they either haven’t published their results or have only published lists of schools their pupils move on to, no numbers. I have heard through the grapevine that Sarum Hall girls have done quite well this year though. I’d also like to add the disclaimer that I don’t think a school should be judged purely on how many girls they get into St Paul’s (or NLCS), but it’s a nice and easy way to create some sort of a ranking without making it too complicated. At least this gives you a very good indicator about the level of selectiveness and “pushiness” of a school, and you can judge for yourself if you think that is a good thing or not!

There is a lot of talk about how the cost of private schools has risen in London over the last years, and many parents who planned to send their kids to private schools are not so sure if they can afford it anymore. School fees have risen far above inflation over the last years and are quite likely to continue to do so, in my opinion, given how oversubscribed many of them are, at least in Central London. But did you know you should almost double your estimate of what it will cost you to send your kid to private school?

“Some parents make the mistake of looking at only the first year’s fees and proceeding with the massive financial commitment on the basis of that one year”, says Robin Baker of EDEN School Fees Planning, who help parents plan for and reduce the cost of school fees.

Last year, I helped a close friend decide if she should send her daughter to a private school when she was allocated only her 6^th choice of state primary school on National Offer Day. She is a professional on a very good income, but given the cost of rent and childcare in London, she was one of those unlucky people too high earning to ever qualify for a bursary but not comfortably able to send her children to private school either. I remember we went through all the numbers on a spreadsheet, and by the end of it, I strongly advised her not to go private. After adding up all the costs (and there are many costs people don’t initially think about, which I will talk about later), she would have had maybe £100 or £200 per month left for “negative surprises”. Our spreadsheet suggested that if she got a surprise parking ticket, visit to the dentist or lost her phone, she might have problems sleeping at night. It’s not a situation I would wish on anyone. As it happened, a few months before school start, her daughter moved up the waiting list and was offered her second choice state school. She is very happy and thriving there now, and her mother is extremely relieved she didn’t send her to a prep school in London, particularly now that she sees that even without school fees, the money that she had thought of using for school fees gets eaten up by birthday presents, school uniform, childcare, holidays and other extras.

Going through the full calculations of what private school costs with her prompted me to write about the full cost of private education here. So, what does it cost? First, there is the obvious part, the basic school fees. They vary by school, but most British prep schools in London now charge somewhere between £12,000 and £16,000, (with a few exceptions beyond £20,000, such as Garden House and Eaton Square School, as well as most international schools and the American School). Next, there is the uniform, which again varies, and many schools organise second hand uniform sales to make it easier for parents, but to be sure we don’t underestimate the cost, let’s say this will cost £500 per year (it is probably more in the first year and less in subsequent years, as you may use some items for a couple of years and buy the used). Then there are school lunches. Again the cost will vary, but a good estimate will be £250 per term of £750 per year. Then you have extracurricular activities. Of course, you don’t need to do any, but let’s assume your child might still want to do two activities on average, maybe learn and instrument and play cricket, for example. Some after-school clubs are free, many others range from £60 to £250 per term depending on the level of teaching involved – one on one violin lessons, for example, will be far more expensive than a home work club. So let’s assume we sign up for two clubs at £150 per term, again we need to add £900 per year for this. School trips might be an additional cost, and here costs will vary considerably, while some schools include this in the fees, so let’s leave this part blank for now. Are you keeping track? Let me summarise where we are:

• Tuition fees: £15,000
• School uniform: £ 500
• School lunches: £ 750
• Extracurriculars: £ 900

So we have £17,150 per year per child now, paid from your aftertax income.

 You are still feeling comfortable and think we are done? Think again. Let’s now move on to the real cost, the part that many forget about and that makes a real difference between private and state school: after-school and holiday care. State schools tend to have breakfast clubs and after-school clubs running from 8am to 6pm. They also offer holiday clubs that run from 8am to 6pm every day. Taking the example of my friend whose daughter now attends a state primary school, her after-school club costs £12 per day and the holiday club about £35 for the full day.

In comparison, private schools offer far less provision in terms of hours and at a much higher cost. If both parents work full-time, you would always need to hire someone to pick up your child from school, as even on the days the school runs after-school clubs, pick up times would be 5pm at the latest. Plus, many clubs are only offered to children from Year 1 upwards, so you would never be able to fill the week with after-school clubs till 5 when your child starts school. And who can really leave their office at 4.15pm every day to make it to school in time for pick-up? Realistically, most working parents hire a nanny from 3pm to 6 or 7pm every day at a cost of anywhere between £10 to £15 per hour. Hardly any private schools offer holiday camps, and if they do, they will only run for certain weeks and for part of the day. That means, you would need to book additional private childcare during the holidays. You could try to convince your local state school to accept your child into their holiday programme, but they would likely spend the day with children who know each other from school, which is not ideal.

Plus, and here comes the funny part, private schools have considerably longer holidays than state schools. Just speaking of my daughter’s school, they have four weeks of Christmas holidays, four weeks of Easter holidays plus eight weeks of summer holidays. And in between each of these, there is another week of half-term holidays. We are talking of at least one month of additional full childcare provision that you will have to pay (compared to state school), and four months in total of holiday care you need to pay for. I’d be surprised if that is not another £4,000 you need to add to the total cost, plus the after-school care, which at about £600 per month for the remaining eight month that your school is actually open until 3 or 3.30pm amounts to another £4,800 per year.

So if both parents work full-time, the truth is that you need to double your estimate of what it is going to cost you to send your children to private school. This is why my friend who thought she could afford about £10,000 per year on school fees found out after her daughter finished the Reception year that she had actually spent about £10,000 during the year on school related extras and childcare, even though her daughter attended a state school! So to be precise, some costs listed here might also arise when you send your child to state school, but all items from school uniform to extracurriculars and school trips as well as birthday presents tend to be cheaper at a state school than their private school equivalents. And you need to be aware that you will be spending this money; £12,000 or £15,000 per year per child is not a realistic estimate of what you need to have left after covering your normal expenses.

Of course, you can say at this rate it is cheaper for one parent not to work, saving up to £10,000 of additional childcare cost, but assuming your salary is higher than that, this is probably not an optimal long-term decision, at least from a financial perspective. I am not trying to convince anyone to opt for one way or the other, but I do want to prevent people from making long-term financial commitments that will cause them sleepless nights later on. Only go private if you still feel comfortable after considering all the associated costs and if you feel your chosen private school is considerably superior to your state school alternatives to make it worth the cost.

Related posts:

• Affordable private schools in Central London
• Private schools that offer bursaries and scholarships

It’s been raining for a few days, so I am allowed to talk about the end of the summer holidays and the upcoming autumn term! Are you ready for the next school year! First of all, I have updated the schedule of Open Mornings of London prep schools, including everyone from the Abercorn School to Westminster Under! Make sure you mark your place if you are planning to do the rounds.

If you are applying for a 4+ place to start in September 2015, you are likely to start getting invites for assessments to be held between October to January (if you haven’t already). My daughter will sit hers in January.

If you are applying for a Reception place at state schools as well, there are more dates to watch: between September 1st and 8th, most councils will publish their “Starting Primary School 2014 / 2015″ booklets, which will lay out admission arrangements and statistics. Also on Sep 1st, the eadmissions site will open for registration, so you can register to apply for a state school place. The application deadline will be 15 January 2015, and national offer day will take place on 16 April 2015 (unfortunately long after any private school admissions deadlines, so one will need to commit to private school before knowing the outcome of state school applications).

Another date I watch closely is the day new primary school league tables based on 2014 SATS results are published. This tends to take place at the beginning of December. I will write about it when the results are released. Let’s see if Fox Primary comes out on top again this year! You can see the 2013 results for community primary schools here.

While there are many excellent private (and state) schools in London, there are also quite a few schools that are businesses more than anything else, and I want to highlight a few warning signs that your chosen school is indeed a McPrep, rather than a true school with the primary purpose of educating your child. It’s not easy, because on the surface, most prep schools look the same. The website that talks about well-rounded education and stellar exit results, the lovely traditional uniform complete with blazer and hat for 4 year olds, a bit of ballet and cricket here, Mandarin there, a rigorous 4+ assessment to make sure only the brightest children attend…. what can possibly go wrong?

How do I recognise a McPrep? Unfortunately, in most cases, you will have to visit to find out, but here are a few tell-tale signs. High registration fees, the tendency to demand registration long before the school can be visited along with unfounded claims of oversubscription are one indicator (though I must add that some excellent small schools have had to resort to these measures to manage the amount of applicants).

When you do visit in person, it is much easier to identify a McPrep: the headmaster may not really be interested in the parent or even be to busy to meet them, many teachers look surprisingly young and seem to be dressed for a cocktail party rather than an educational establishment, and key staff may not be able to answer specific questions about the curriculum (I heard one story of a mum who asked by what method Reception children were taught to read and the Headmistress couldn’t tell her, which I found quite shocking).

A typical indicator is also when teachers seem to be putting on a show for visitors but are really waiting for you to leave their classroom as soon as possible. I always find excellent schools don’t mind who walks in and out and just go on teaching as normal, whereas teachers who feel they have something to hide put on a show for visitors to show just how much fun the children have and how great they are.

I have also found in such schools that many pupils tend to look somewhat lost or disengaged, despite their beautiful uniform. As you see, it is very important to see a school in person to find out if it is what I would call a real school. I urge you to visit schools (even those you have heard a lot about from other parents) with a critical mindset. Imagine there was no uniform and you had heard nothing good about this school, would you still think it is the right place based on what you have seen?

To find out upcoming open mornings at London prep schools, click here.

Have you ever visited a McPrep? How could you tell?

Westminster School publishes a list of its 13+ feeder schools, and as a leading boys’ day school in London, it will give parents a very good idea about the top prep schools in London. A large majority of boys (about 40-50 each year) come from Westminster Under School and its 7+ and 11+ intake (the list of which is not published, unfortunately), but the following is a list of London preparatory schools that have been successful in sending at least two boys to Westminster School at 13+ in 2013:

School                        Number of boys in 2013
Westminster Under School  47
The Hall (Hampstead)     11
Dulwich Prep London        7
Northbridge House (Hampstead) 7
St Anthony’s (Hampstead) 5
Hereward House (Hampstead) 4
Hill House 4
St Paul’s Cathedral School 4
Fulham Preparatory School 3
Newton Prep (Battersea)  3
Sussex House (Chelsea)     5
Wetherby Prep 3
Westminster Cathedral Choir School 3
Arnold House (Hampstead) 2
Thomas’s (Battersea) 2

followed by a longer list of schools that gained just one place at the Westminster School, which you can find on p.16 of this Westminster School Information Booklet.

You may also be interested in the leading feeder schools to Eton College

Are you applying for primary school places to start Reception in September 2015? At many oversubscribed London state primary schools, catchment areas have been shrinking in recent years, although there is some relief in select councils. In Richmond, the newly opened Thomson House free school and a bulge class at Barnes Primary helped ease the pressure last year – it’s probably the only borough left in London where an outstanding state primary can have a catchment area of 1 mile! But even at many of the top Muswell Hill state primary schools, catchment areas seem to have remained constant or even increased for a change, which is great news. Other parts of London were not so lucky. Certainly in Kensington and Fulham getting into an outstanding state primary school is a big challenge! The popular strategy of renting next to your desired school becomes a challenge with catchment areas of 0.05 miles, as in the case of Fox Primary School!

If you have subscribed to my newsletter, you will have access to the most recent version of the free London Schools Guide (see top right for sign-up form), which contains links to all Starting Primary School Admissions Booklets of the London boroughs which list catchment areas and admissions criteria for all state primary schools. If you are still undecided on where in London you want to live when you apply or you are considering where to move in London, here is a little overview of admissions criteria for the top London state primary schools that will give you a good idea. The common theme is probably that you need to be an avid church goer if you want to get into one of the sought after voluntary aided schools, or you need to live within 200-300 meters of your chosen community primary. This rule seems to apply in most areas. But let’s get started with the overview of catchment areas:

Camden
Outstanding state primary schools in Camden are massively oversubscribed. The new free school Abacus Primary in Belsize Park will provide some relief, but it may not be enough. Like Barnet, Camden is yet to publish the 2015 brochure, so we will take the stats from the 2014 for now and update the post as soon as the new information is published. The popular Christopher Hatton Primary near Holborn only took one child living 0.03 miles from the school under distance criteria, all other places were filled by siblings and one child with special educational needs. Eleanor Palmer Primary was not much better with a catchment area of 0.1 miles! Fleet Primary at 0.35 miles and Torriano Infants at 0.30 miles are slightly better, but overall catchment areas in Camden are very small across the board, so be careful!

Kensington and Chelsea
Back in Central London, there is no respite for people hoping to get into an outstanding state primary school. Bousfield Primary School could only extend offers to families living within 0.1644 of a mile from the school! It was even tougher to get into Fox Primary, with the furthest pupil admitted living 0.06 miles from the school within the priority area (if you think it is impossible even to live so close to a school, I even know a lucky family who lives within this distance of Fox Primary! According to the statistics, 20 places were allocated within this distance!). Thomas Jones Primary near Ladbroke Grove is just mildly better with the furthest distance at 0.145 of a mile from the school. At the highly successful Oratory RC Primary School in Chelsea, only Baptised Catholic children from practising
Catholic families whose families attended Mass regularly and who are resident within the Oratory Parish were able to gain a place. What a shame, I love the Oratory RC uniform – the first time I saw pupils from the school on the streets of South Kensington I thought “I wonder which fancy prep school that is!”. Only the Garden House School comes close in terms of style!

Hammersmith and Fulham

The catchment area of the popular All Saints Church of England primary school had already been cut in half in 2013, and it got even worse in 2014 when only one open place was offered to a family at a distance of 0.09 miles from the school. The popular bilingual French Lycee programme at L’ecole Marie d’Orliac was heavily oversubscribed again with a catchment area of only 0.16 miles (compared to 0.2504 miles in 2013). The Fulham Bilingual programme is switching to a lottery admissions system (within a defined, relatively large area of Fulham) for 2015 to avoid families moving next to the school to secure a place. The newly opened West London Free School Primary in Hammersmith had a catchment area of 0.49 miles in its second year.

Islington
Further East, catchment areas are no wider, with the most popular schools’ catchment areas in Islington at:
Canonbury 0.418 miles (not so bad!)
Grafton 0.231 miles
Thornhill 0.373 miles
William Tyndale 0.243 miles
Yerbury Primary School 0.224 miles
Keep in mind please that these distances just show you retrospectively what the cut-off distance for admission was in 2014, they are a good indicator but distances do vary from year to year depending on the number of siblings, birth rates, and changes to class sizes or competing schools. There is no guarantee you will gain admission if you live closer than the distances shown!

Westminster
In Westminster Council, the King Solomon Academy (one of the few state primary school in London I’ve found so far using the Singapore Maths curriculum – where are the others??) was able to offer places to parents living in a radius of up to 326 metres from the school. Hampden Gurney CE Primary School, the top performing school by test results after Grinling Gibbons, only accepted applicants who are avid and practicing members of the Church of England.

Lewisham
Grinling Gibbons is London’s top performing state primary school if you look at SATS results. Its catchment area in 2014 was a tiny 186 metres.

Bromley
Burnt Ash Primary in Bromley with a last offer distance of 0.62 miles looks like a piece of cake in comparison, as does Clare House with 0.46 miles. Offer distance at the popular Pickhurst Infant Academy shrank to 0.47 miles, while a tough one to get into in 2014 was the Valley Primary with an offer distance of 0.17 miles!

Haringey
Further up North in Muswell Hill and Crouch End, an area known for many outstanding state primary schools, catchment areas remained fairly constant, some shrank and some got wider. Here are last distances offered for Muswell Hill’s most popular state primary schools:
Coleridge 0.3211 (0.3251 in 2013)
Coldfall 0.38  (0.5248 in 2013)
Muswell Hill 0.2374 (0.3171 in 2013)
Rhodes Avenue 0.3557 (0.3456 in 2013)
Tetherdown 0.3565 (0.2508 in 2013)

Barnet
The council of Barnet is still updating final information for the 2015 brochure. Here are the stats for the previous year: In the popular Hampstead Garden Suburb, Brookland Infant School with 90 Reception places had a catchment area of 0.387 and the equally outstanding Garden Suburb Infant School a catchment area of 0.82, so at least you know it is not absolutely impossible to get a place at a top state school near Golders Green. Martin Primary, another school close to East Finchley tube station had a catchment area of 0.62 miles. The high performing Courtland Primary near Mill Hill had a tiny catchment of 0.19 only.

Harrow
Newton Farm Junior School made negative headlines with a scandal about potential test result manipulation, but it still had a tiny catchment area of  0.263 miles only. High performing Whitchurch Junior School looks better with a cut-off distance of 0.608 miles, as does Cannon Lane Primary School at 0.773 miles.

Richmond

Not only does Richmond Borough have many outstanding primary schools with the widest catchment areas, they also publish extremely helpful maps of successful and unsuccessful applications for each oversubscribed school called primary school allocation maps. The following table gives the ‘cut-off’ distance from home to school of the last child offered a place for the most popular non-faith Richmond Borough community primary schools. The distance in brackets is the cut-off for the previous year’s admissions.
School                  Distance in metres
Barnes Primary  288 (400)
East Sheen Primary  713 (411) – this school had an additional bulge class
Marshgate Primary 661 (989)
Sheen Mount Primary  885 (484)
Thomson House 893 (644)
The Vineyard Primary 755 (319)

Wandsworth
Belleville Primary School - applicants living up to a distance of 238 (274) metres.
Brandlehow Primary School – this is another hidden gem of an outstanding, high performing school with a cut-off distance of 520 metres.
Honeywell Infant School - applicants living up to a distance of 182 (232) metres.
Wix School - Bilingual class of the Wix Primary School offered in cooperation with the French Lycee – 14 siblings admitted, no others! This school certainly wins the prize for London’s smallest catchment area of ZERO metres!

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This is a guest post by Faisal Nasim, tutor and director of Exampapersplus.co.uk(see further info and bio below). I have been wanting to share more info on the 7+ process and how to prepare for the exam for a long time, as I keep getting asked about it by readers, so I am very grateful for this guest post!

What is the 7+?
The 7+ assessment is a competitive selection exam used by an increasing number of top schools in London for entry into Year 3. Your child will sit the exam whilst in Year 2. Most schools administer the exam in January, though there are some that do so at various other times of the year.

What is tested?
The 7+ exam primarily tests Maths and English. An increasing number of schools now also include a Reasoning paper containing Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning. The tests are usually in a written form but there can be verbal sections testing mental arithmetic, spelling, memory and dictation. There may also be manual and creative tasks to complete. Last year, one top London school asked children to draw a self-portrait.

If your child passes the examination stage, they may be asked back for an interview. (N.B. Some schools conduct the interviews beforehand or on the same day as the written tests). The interview process will usually include a one-on-one chat with the Headmaster/Headmistress and some group tasks that your child will have to complete alongside their peers.

How competitive is it?
The process can be extremely competitive in London, especially at certain schools where there are more than 10 applicants per place. However, it is worth bearing in mind that this statistic is a little misleading as many apply to a number of different schools simultaneously and so the total pool of applicants is not necessarily that large. Notwithstanding this, the standard can be extremely high with successful candidates often performing at an academic level well above the national average.

Schools usually invite around 2 students for interview per place. For example, if a school has 30 places available and receives 300 applications, only 60 will be asked to interview after the examination process. Each applicant is then given a ranking based on their exam and interview performance and the top 30 will be offered a place. Those ranked from 30 to 40 will be placed on a waiting list and will only be offered a place if someone else declines. In reality, this happens rarely at the top schools and so you need to be quite high up the waiting list to be in with a chance. Most schools will tell you your exact ranking if requested.

What are the schools looking for at 7+?
Most schools will claim to be looking for holistically well-rounded candidates and whilst this is generally true, the primary deciding factor is usually examination performance. However, good social skills and behaviour are of course important too. The school will usually request a report from your child’s current Head.

Do you need a tutor for the 7+?
The more important question is how much preparation your child needs for the 7+ exam. The exam is very competitive, so clearly somebody has to prepare your child very well, either the pre-prep school, you (the parent), an external tutor, or a combination of those three. Unless your child is a genius, a considerable amount of study is required to pass the 7+ at the most competitive prep schools. You will need to find out how much you can rely on your current pre-prep school, and how much time you yourself are willing or able to help prepare your child. If your school is not geared towards the 7+ exam and/or you work full-time and cannot sit down with your child on a regular basis, you might well need outside help. This is a contentious topic. Officially, schools are against tutoring, but it is quite prevalent, so keep an open mind about it depending on your circumstances.

Is it better to come from state or prep school?
Pre-prep schools live and die by their exit results and so it’s certainly within their interest to prepare their students specifically for this exam. Whilst most pre-preps will offer extra classes and lessons for those sitting the 7+, these can vary in quality and some are a great deal better than others. It’s also worth noting that you may face some resistance to the 7+ from your child’s pre-prep as they often prefer that your child remains at the school an extra year and leaves at 8+.

State schools will generally offer little or no support towards preparing students for 7+ exams. The onus will therefore fall upon you to make sure your child is up to speed. A large number of state school children (myself included!) gain entrance to London’s top schools at 7+ every year so you shouldn’t be discouraged simply because your child currently attends such a school. In fact, an argument can be made that those attending pre-preps are held to a higher standard at examination as the school will expect them to have received additional preparation and assistance. All else being equal, this could be used as a deciding factor between two candidates coming from the state and private sector.

Is age taken into consideration?
At such a young age, birth dates and subsequent levels of maturity play a significant role in aptitude and children born in September certainly have an advantage over those born the following August. Officially, some schools will take this into account by weighting Reasoning scores according to age. Furthermore, most schools will take your child’s birth date into serious consideration when making their choices.

How to prepare?
Below is a general summary of the skills required, followed by suggested resources.

English
The main focus should be around comprehension and story-writing skills. For comprehension, responses must be provided in full sentences unless otherwise stated. At 7+, most questions involve simple fact recollection though some can be more challenging and abstract. The key to doing well is to have a solid technique and wide-ranging vocabulary. Your child should be reading at a level above the national average.

For story-writing, it is imperative that the response relates to the question at hand rather than simply regurgitating a memorised essay. In order to prevent this, schools may ask that the essay continues the story begun in the comprehension and some may provide image-based prompts and ideas. Marks are awarded for interesting and creative use of vocabulary, good use of structure, spelling, handwriting and logical sequence. You should ask your child to practise writing 5 or 10 lines a day about topics that interest them. You can then use that as a platform to build up their vocabulary by including more adjectives/adverbs/similes etc.

Some schools also test spelling, grammar, memory and dictation. For example, they may be asked to punctuate a sentence or there may be a verbally administered spelling test. Dictation is usually read through once and then repeated twice more slowly. Similarly, they may be read a short passage twice or thrice and then asked to write a summary in their own words. These are all skills that you can practise at home with material of the relevant level.

Mathematics
Even though the 7+ exam usually falls mid-way through the academic year, your child can be tested on the full syllabus from Year 2. In fact, at the most competitive schools, there will often be questions that go well beyond the average national level expected at Year 2. Mental arithmetic forms the basis of most papers and could be tested in both a verbal and written form. There will also be longer word problems that require two or three-step solutions as well as mathematical puzzles and more abstract questions that require deeper thought. As with English, the key is doing a small amount of practice consistently and regularly.

Reasoning
An increasing number of schools test Reasoning and so it is worth checking whether it will be examined by the schools you are interested in. Both Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning could be included in the exam. These types of questions are not usually taught at school so, at a minimum, you are advised to go through a few of them with your child so they know what to expect. Many children enjoy Reasoning and it can often appeal to those who like puzzles and word games.

Whilst it’s normal for children to prefer one subject over another, all subjects are equally important. To be successful at 7+, it’s not imperative that your child scores the top mark in every subject. Rather, they simply need to perform relatively well across the board and avoid a significantly weak performance in any one subject. Scoring 80% in both Maths and English is generally viewed more favourably than scoring 100% in Maths and 60% in English, even though the average mark is the same in both cases.

Timed Practice
For most children, the 7+ is their first experience of sitting a timed assessment. It is therefore worth giving them some insight into the process so that they know what to expect on the day. Closer to the exam, they should attempt some practice papers under examination conditions so they get used to managing their time and dealing with pressure. Sitting timed practice papers at regular intervals also provides a useful means of measuring progress and development and highlighting strengths and weaknesses. Some prep schools provide sample specimen papers from previous years for practice. Further 7+ practice papers are available at exampapersplus.co.uk. These mental arithmetic practice books are also helpful. For English, this is an excellent book to help teach comprehension.

What happens during interviews and assessment days?
Interviews are generally rather informal and relaxed. Your child will likely be asked about their hobbies and interests and their responses and input will likely guide the conversation. There is no need to formally prepare and certainly no need to make your child memorise ‘perfect’ responses. (Yes this happens surprisingly often!). There will often be some form of group task that will involve working with others and following instructions. The purpose of this is to assess whether your child is able to interact and communicate with their peers in a friendly, polite and effective manner. There could also be further written tasks such as writing a poem etc.

Author bio: Faisal Nasim is the director of Exam Papers Plus. He has worked as a teacher and tutor for a number of years, specialising in preparing students for 7+, 8+, 10+,11+ and 13+ entrance tests. Faisal’s own education has provided him with first-hand experience of the examination process. He was awarded a 7+ Scholarship to Dulwich Prep School, an 11+ Scholarship to Colet Court and the prestigious John Colet Scholarship to St. Paul’s School. He went on to read History at Jesus College, Cambridge. 

You can contact Faisal directly at faisal@exampapersplus.co.uk.

Whenever you hear people talk about oversubscribed London schools and parents emailing registration forms from the labour ward, chances are they are referring to Wetherby Pre-Prep or its sister school, Pembridge Hall, on Pembridge Square in Notting Hill. While you might hear many stories about it, it is not easy to visit the school, since school tours are restricted to those families who are offered a confirmed place. I was therefore very grateful for the opportunity to meet Mr Keighley-Elstub, headmaster of Pembridge Hall since September 2012, for an interview and a tour of the school on a sunny Wednesday morning in September.

Pembridge Hall is set across two beautiful villas on Pembridge Square. Number 18 houses the Lower School, Number 10 the Upper School (with Wetherby Pre-Prep conveniently located in between at number 11). The school has an open door policy for parents and I could see this in action as two parents dropped in with their toddlers for various reasons in the few minutes that I waited to begin the interview.

Mr Keighley-Elstub has been headmaster of Pembridge Hall for just over two years, before which he was deputy head at Wetherby Prep School. So the obvious first question was how he had found the change from a boys’ prep school to heading an all girls’ school? He assured me it is not at all different, and that he felt the same approach very much worked for both. I was quite relieved to hear that, as in recent years many heads tend to overemphasize the difference between boys and girls to “sell” parents all girls’ or all boys’ education. He certainly thinks sports is just as important at a girls’ school and has made sure that the extracurricular offering goes beyond the typical “netball, tennis, rounders” list you may find at many girls’ schools. Cricket, martial arts and field hockey are just some of the sports on offer here. “We’re a girls’ school, but we are not a girly school”, he assured me. The school is relatively large with 60 girls per year group, 420 pupils in total, which makes it easier for the school to offer a wide range of sports and extracurriculars and to give all girls the opportunity to join various teams.

Of course, I also had to ask about how to get a place at Pembridge Hall School, and unfortunately it is true that to get a place in Reception, you have to sign up as soon as possible after birth. But it is certainly possible to apply for occasional places higher up in the school, as they do arise once in a while and get filled from the waiting list. Although entry at 4+ is non-selective, for places in higher year groups, assessments are carried out and candidates need to have a good standard of English and Maths to be able to keep up with the pace of the curriculum.

Exit results are excellent at Pembridge Hall, especially given its non-selective nature for the Reception intake, and I was curious how 11+ preparation and senior school selection are carried out here. Pupils start their 11+ preparation officially in Year 5, and over time sit more and more assessments in English and Maths that get increasingly similar to the actual 11+ exam. Through this constant assessment, parents and pupils get realistic expectations of their chances at the senior schools of their choice. This year, for example, Pembridge Hall girls won 5 offers from St Paul’s, 11 from Latymer Upper, 14 from Godolphin and Latymer and 18 from South Hampstead High School. But the school makes sure to offer the girls a wide ranging curriculum to take their minds off English and Maths tests. The only Year 6 girls I saw during my tour were wearing sports kits and just racing out of their classroom for sports practice.

In the Lower School, all three Reception classes are on the ground floor, and whichever classroom I entered, we were greeted by an international mix of happy, excited girls. The atmosphere in the lower school is welcoming and friendly, and the mix of children is very international, reflecting the Notting Hill neighbourhood. As many as 60% of pupils are from an international background, according to Mr Keighley-Elstub, but of course many of these are born and bred Londoners just like their British peers. The Lower School has a lovely small outdoor playground, but girls do also use beautiful Pembridge Square for break times.

In the Upper School, I could visit the new science lab, where we met the specialist Science teacher and co-ordinator Miss Hassan. Unfortunately, no lesson was in progress when we came, but I could see the lab is well equipped and the children do a wide exposure of scientific topics. In fact, Miss Hassan used to teach science at secondary schools before joining Pembridge Hall, and enjoys stretching the girls with hands-on experiments.

But the loveliest classroom of all, in my view, is the school’s drama studio, which reminded me of one of the costume stores where I used to buy carnival costumes in my childhood. It must be any girl’s dream with its choice of costumes, props, masks and puppets. Drama is an important part of the curriculum at Pembridge Hall, with girls taking drama lessons from Reception, and each year group involved in performances.

Apart from self-confidence and communication skills that pupils can build during drama lessons, another characteristic Mr Keighley-Elstub wants to instil in the girls is to be hard-working and humble. Many children here are lucky to attend such a lovely school, but of course, they also need to be ready for life in the real world one day. But he stressed the school was not just right for one type of girl, instead he wants his school to be a happy place for all children, no matter if they are shy, extravert, sporty or bookish (or none of those!).

On the way out, I met Monika Jackova, registrar at Pembridge Hall. She is very friendly and approachable, despite the hundreds of enquiries and phone calls she must be getting each week. Then I walked out of this lovely villa, into the sunshine, and I could hear the cheers and chatter of girls playing on Pembridge Square. As I walked past the square, a group of Wetherby boys ran down the stairs of their villa, across the street and onto the square to enjoy their break time in the sun.

Want to put your Mandarin to test? Children will gain experience, build self-confidence and improve their Mandarin through the Hua Hsia Mandarin Chinese Speaking Competition! The Chinese Speaking Competition is open to entries until noon on the 20th October 2014. There are 2 categories: Group A (age between 6 and 11 years old), Group B (age between 12 and 18 years old).

Who is eligible?
Primary, secondary and language schools are eligible to apply. Students must be from 6 to 18 years old and non-native speakers of Chinese.

How can I participate?
Preliminary Competition: Each student needs to submit a 1-2 minute voice recording to us before the 20th October 2014. Topics can be Chinese poems, Chinese idioms or stories. We will select 10 students from Group A and 10 students from Group B for the Final Competition on the 26th October 2014. Students who are successful in the first stage will be informed on the 23rd October 2014.
Final Competition: Each student from Group A will present a 2 minute speech on topics related to Chinese Culture. Each student from Group B will present a 2 minute speech as well as a 1 minute speech on the topics given on the day. 5 winners will be chosen from each group and the results will be announced on the day.
The judge will mark on accuracy, pronunciation, fluency and cultural content.

What are the prizes?
A free trial with the reading website 5QChannel will be given to all who make it into the Final Competition. Chinese story reading resources will be available to download from the 5QChannel site.
There will be 5 winners from each group of the Final Competition. Prizes include £50 vouchers, £25 vouchers and £10 vouchers.

How to apply?
Please complete the online application form on www.huahsia-chinese.org.uk. Once you have submitted the online application you will receive an invitation by email to submit the voice recording.

Details of the competition:

Date 26 October 2014
Venue 98 The Broadway, London, NW7 3TB (Mill Hill Branch)
Date of Preliminary Competition 22 September – 20 October (Before noon)
Please complete the online application form on http://goo.gl/PkcoIb
Date of Final Competition 26 October (Sunday) 13:30 -17:30
Cost Free for all

Hua Hsia welcome people who are interested in Chinese culture and Mandarin language to join our event. Please do send an email to events@huahsia-chinese.org.uk to confirm a place. You will need to provide your contact information, such as; name, email address and mobile number.

For more information, please visit www.huahsia-chinese.org.uk

The Board of Abercorn School has appointed Benedict Dunhill the new Headmaster for Abercorn School. Benedict will be joining Abercorn School in September 2015, following the retirement of Abercorn’s current Headmaster David Morse.

Born and educated in the South East at Caldicott School and Cranleigh School, Benedict completed his formal education with a BA degree in French Language and Literature at University College, London. He joins Abercorn from Port Regis School, Dorset.

I keep getting asked by readers and clients if it is better to choose a pre-prep and focus on 7+ / 8+ exams, or a prep that goes all the way to 11+ or 13+. I was reminded of this debate on Sunday during a dinner with friends whose daughter is just preparing for her 11+ entrance exams to the North London Collegiate School (among others). I was telling them about my favourite choices (one of them a prep school, one an all-through school) and the father confided that if he could do it all over again, he would have never chosen a prep school and concentrated on finding a great all-through school from the start.

But before discussing preparatory schools versus all-through schools, let me explain a bit more in detail how you could make the choice between focusing on 7+/8+ versus 11+/13+ exams. First of all, there is the practical matter of senior school choice. What senior schools do you have in mind eventually, and what intakes do they have? For girls, prep schools till 11+ are the most common choice because there are very few top schools that have 7+ intakes – City of London and Bute House are the main ones, while the North London Collegiate School has 10 places at 7+. So unless you know you are aiming for these, it will usually make more sense to choose a prep school till 11+ for girls (which explains why you have a majority of boys in most pre-prep schools in London). For boys, the situation is rather different, as many top boys’ schools start at 7+ (such as Colet Court, Westminster Under, King’s College Wimbledon) or 8+ (such as Sussex House). Many parents who wish to send their sons to those schools as early as possible send their boys to pre-preps that prepare specifically for those entrance exams.

But beyond the matter of senior school choices, what else do you need to consider which is better for your child? It is impossible to say what is better overall, as it depends on the personality of your child (although this can be very hard to know in advance for a newborn) and your own preferences as a parent. Personally, I much prefer the 4-13 or 4-11 schools (or even the ones that go all the way 4-18). The problem I see with pure pre-preps is that the children start when they are almost 5 and then have less than 2 years before they have to sit stressful exams – in the pure pre-preps, they have very little time to settle in (one renowned pre-prep sets homework in the first week of Reception!) and then get into test preparation mode. At some pre-preps, children tend to get classified into “Westminster material” or not early on. I think this is very stressful for 6 year old children, who in other European countries would not even have started school yet. I know parents whose boys are doing the 7+ and they are very stressed out about it.

The advantage of the 7+ of course is that if it goes well, you are basically sorted and then don’t have to worry about it anymore. I would say for a native speaker who seems very advanced for his age it can work very well. From what I heard, for internationals who need some time to adjust to the new system, it is quite stressful to be facing the pressure of 7+ exams so fast, and rather than at Colet Court, they often end up entering other prep schools at 7+ or 8+ to try again at 13+, which means they would probably have been better off joining those same prep schools at 4+.

Then it depends on your ideal of education as well. What I like about the 4-13 approach is that these schools can take it a bit easier in the first years, do more sports and arts and music, and then they can just accelerate later when the children are ready. In my view, 6 year olds are supposed to run around and play and explore, not study for exams yet. But this is a personal view, I know some parents think children should learn to study hard to get ahead as fast as possible. And they worry that they miss the boat if the child takes it easy for too long. This is also a valid point, and again it will depend on the child. If they are happy to sit down and study, it can work, but if they are reluctant, the parents can have a very hard time.

Some people also like to tackle the issue from a statistical perspective and check at which entry point schools have the biggest intake (compared to the number of applicants). But again, it is hard to say if it is easier to get in at one level or the other because it just depends on how ready your child is compared to other children. And even if you can compare acceptance rates versus applicant numbers, it is hard to say if the quality of applicants at the different entry points is comparable.

Now that we know that a prep school till 11+/13+ may be less stressful than a pre-prep, of course that means an all-through school that does not require the child to take any entrance exams (after the 4+) can make your life even easier! The benefits of an all-through school are massive. The obvious one is that you have long-term certainty of a place and do not need to worry so much about what may happen during the 11+/13+ exam. It is true that children may still need to take the exam and reach a minimum standard to maintain their place at the senior school, but it is still far easier to score high enough to maintain your place than it is to score in the top 1% or 5% to get in at 11+. The main benefit I see beyond that is that children can actually learn much more. If they can spend most of their time on a balanced and rich curriculum, rather than spending most of Years 5 and 6 on Maths and English test papers, they probably end up better educated in the long run.

The only problem is that there aren’t actually that many all-through schools in Central London. For girls, there Queen’s Gate, Francis Holland, Putney High School, and South Hampstead High School (if you still want to call those central). If you look at co-educational ones, Highgate seems to be the most popular. Because many people see the benefit of an all-through school, these schools are actually particularly competitive to get into, even at the 4+ level.

Then of course you have the issue that they may be very good, but at the senior level many of them (North London Collegiate School aside) are not “the best”. So if you aim for “the best” school such as St Paul’s or Westminster, you might still prefer a prep school that will prepare a child for 11+ or 13+ entrance exams into the very top senior schools. In a way, if you choose an all-through school that is number 10 in London (see here for a ranking of London Day Schools by A-Level results), you settle for the number 10 and give up the option of sending your child to the number 1. This is a very valid argument, but I wonder how relevant really is it to attend the number 1 instead of number 10? Of course, you could say if your child is brilliant and exceptional, they really need to be at number 1. But in my experience, many more people aim to send their child to the number 1 school, not just those whose children really are so far off the charts that they have to be at St Paul’s and nowhere else. And even if your child is so exceptional that even the number 5 or 10 among London Day Schools is not good enough, you could probably argue they would get in eventually anyway, regardless of attending a prep school or not.

So as you can see, I am really warming up to the idea of avoiding prep schools and the whole 11+ exam preparation process. In my case, it is a bit more complicated because the prep school is within walking distance, while the all-through school is a 15 minute drive away. Prep schools also differ in terms of how much curriculum time they dedicate to exam preparation, and some can be far more tedious than others. It’s worth asking a school how they do 11+ preparation during your school visits.

To all those currently preparing their kids for 4+ / 7+ / 8+ / 11+ exams in January, best of luck and don’t stress too much! As my friend’s daughter tells her mum: “Don’t worry, mummy, I can handle this!”. It is usually the parents who are more stressed than the children!

You may also want to read All you need to know about the 7+ exam!

Southbank International School in London has launched an IB Diploma scholarship. The two-year, merit-based scholarship covers 100% of Southbank’s tuition fees for the duration of the programme, and is worth over £50,000. Applicants with strong academic potential and a commitment to the qualities and philosophy of the IB ethos are encouraged to apply before the deadline on 16 January 2015. This matches what one well-informed London head recently told me: that Mr Lacey, the new head at Southbank (formerly Deputy Head Academic at Sevenoaks School, one of the top IB schools in the world) is trying to turn Southbank into “Sevenoaks in London“. For more details and to download a Candidate Information Pack, please visit: www.southbank.org/ib-diploma-programme-scholarship.html

See here for an overview of London’s international schools.

I recently visited Miss Daisy’s Chelsea, one of London’s most sought after nursery schools and was intrigued to find out during my chat with owner Daisy Harrison that she along with her partner Sophie Carter had developed a phonics app to help young children to learn to read and write. I immediately tried out the app with my 4 year old daughter and she loved it, so I asked the founders of the app for an interview for more background on hip hop hen.

The co-founders of hip hop hen, Daisy Harrison and Sophie Carter are passionate and dedicated teachers in the UK. Their aim is to raise the standard of early literacy education and give children the best possible start to learning letter sounds (phonics). hip hop hen’s award winning ABC phonics apps are specially designed to introduce children to letter sounds and accelerate reading-readiness. Learning to read is a very important time in a child’s learning journey. Learning to read should be great fun and not a struggle. The fact that a letter symbol makes a sound is very abstract for some children and many become disillusioned at the early stages of learning to read.

How did you come up with the idea of hip hop hen?
Daisy and Sophie wanted to make learning to read easy and fun again and make apps so children can learn at home the same way that they are taught at school. So, hip hop hen is being carefully created to inspire children in the early introduction to reading and writing.
hip hop hen has been meticulously researched to combine all the ‘best bits’ of existing reading schemes as well as totally complementing the UK Primary National Strategy Curriculum, Letters and Sounds. With Ben (our illustrator) we created a family of animals with hip hop hen being the leading member. This family includes:

The family of animals’ names have been carefully selected to have an easily decodable name as well as their own unique character, these will be revealed in our books, these will be launched at the end of 2015.

We have also specially designed a letter character alphabet (which appear throughout our ABC apps) to help children learn letter sounds.

To date, we have created three awarding winning apps. Our apps were launched in 2014 as EDITORS’ CHOICE and FEATURED on Kids’ Store for iPad. Our ‘abc flashcard songs’ app is current NUMBER 1 ESSENTIAL KIDS’ APP for AGES 5 & Under.

Our first 3 learning game apps: ‘abc flashcard songs’, ‘abc jigsaw’ and ‘abc letter tracing’ are specially built to introduce children to hear, read and write early phonics sounds in an easy, fun and imaginative way.

We have also created free printable resources, which are very popular with teachers, parents and children.
These resources can be accessed on our website: http://www.hiphophen.com/free/

There are many phonics reading apps already, why did you feel another one was needed?
Yes, there are some phonics apps but, many of them follow the US curriculum and teach the letter name ‘ABC’ rather than the letter sound ‘abc’ – so they confuse children. Our apps strictly complement the UK national curriculum. We are in the process of creating a complete phonics reading scheme, which follows the order in which the sounds are taught in the National Curriculum. At the moment, with many reading schemes, as a child improves, the text in the book just gets longer and it includes sounds in words that the children have not been introduced to yet. Our reading scheme is much simpler and each book will focus on one sound. For example if the child was learning the ‘ng’ sound that you find in king – the whole book will be about a king, singing songs from the top of his lungs.

What age range are the apps designed for?
Currently, we have 3 apps available to buy: ‘abc flashcard songs’, ‘abc jigsaw’ and ‘abc letter tracing’. These apps are designed for ages 2 – 5 year olds.
Our 4th app will be launched in January 2015 and this is a 3 letter word, decodable, CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) app. This app is designed as a first phonics reading book for 4 – 5 year olds. We are currently completing the reading scheme over 5 more apps, all containing 10 decodable books each. These apps will launched at the end of 2015 and will be aimed at ages 5 – 7 year olds.

Do you think it is beneficial to teaching children to read early (i.e. in their preschool years?)
We strongly believe in learning to read through play in the pre-school years. Children can be introduced to letter sounds through; making play dough letters, drawing and finding letters in sand, drawing letters in shaving foam, singing phonics songs, introducing a child to the letters in their name…
Our first 3 ABC apps are specially designed for pre-schoolers. The apps do not only aid a phonetic awareness but, they help develop many key early learning and pre-reading skills such as:

• Speaking and listening
• Communication and language development
• Joining in with rhythmic patterns
• Identifying sounds in words for reading
• Phonetic awareness
• Finishing rhyming sentences
• Concentration and attention
• Problem solving skills
• Recognition of familiar words, pictures and own name
• Fine and gross motor control and co-ordination
• Moving, handling and operating age-appropriate software
• Shape and pattern matching

All children learn at different speeds. If a pre-school child is ready to start segmenting and blending a 3 letter word and they can distinguish the 3 phoneme sounds then, yes, they are probably ready to start reading. But, we would not endorse pushing a pre-school child to read if they were not ready. Instead, we would sing songs and play sound related games to help a child hear and distinguish between different sounds.

What feedback have you received so far? (from children, parents and teachers)
The feedback has been overwhelming positive from both parents and teachers. All 3 ABC apps have a grown-ups area, which have Early Years Foundation Stage teaching tips. Teachers and parents can use these teaching tips to observe, assess and track children’s learning goals whilst they are using the apps. The children at Miss Daisy’s three nursery schools extensively test all the apps, so we can see how the children use the apps to learn and adapt the games accordingly to complement all learning styles.

What are your future plans?
On December 18th our abc tracing app is launched 3 new games. Children will be able to colour letter pictures, practise their pre-writing skills as well as write and decorate messages.

Our 4th app will be launched in January 2015 and this is a 3 letter word, decodable, CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) app.

In 2015, we are going to spend the year completing the reading scheme. To download the ABC apps go to www.appstore.com/hiphophen.

The deadline to apply for state school places in Reception is looming on 15 January, so it is timely that the Department for Education published the 2014 SATS results, which form the basis for primary school league tables, just before the Christmas holidays. Here is a league table of London’s best performing state primary schools ranked by their average point score in the 2014 SATS tests that are carried out in Year 6. Keep in mind that schools with the highest average point score aren’t necessarily “the best” depending on what you’re looking for, but if you are looking for schools with high academic achievement among pupils (for whichever reason, be it quality of teaching or privileged student intake), these are the schools to target. If you can realistically gain a place here is another matter, check here for a round-up of catchment areas of London’s best performing state primary schools. And don’t worry if you don’t see your local primary school listed here, this is just a top 50 list (for example, the well known and outstanding Honeywell and Coleridge Schools, for example, did not even make the top 50 according to the league tables), and there are many more outstanding and high performing schools. You will find the link to the full primary school league tables at the bottom of this article.

Wondering about school catchment areas? Look no further! Here’s a round up of catchment areas of London’s best state primary schools! Also, if you want to view the results for your local council, which will be more meaningful and give you all the data you need, you can view the 2014 league tables on the Telegraph Education website.

Happy Year of the Sheep everybody! To celebrate the Chinese New Year, the Hua Hsia School in Hampstead is taking part in the following free events across London:

1) Chinese Culture Activities at the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green

Hua Hsia Chinese School is working with The V&A Museum of Childhood to celebrate Chinese New Year.

We are proud that our students will give a performance in the museum. We would like to invite our parents and student to join this wonderful chance to celebrate the year of the SHEEP.

On the day, the museum will also offer different free activates, such as dress-up, storytelling and Chinese shadow puppet making.

Date: Feb 19

Time : 13:00-16:00

Venue: The V & A Museum of Childhood

Address: Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

Nearest tube station: 2 minutes to Bethnal Green underground.

2) Game on! Connecting World Cultures through play at the British Museum

Game on! Connecting World Cultures through play- Supplementary Schools and Families Activity Weekend- 7th and 8th March 2015- Book your free tickets now!
This March, Hua Hsia Chinese School works with the British Museum. We provide Xinagqi workshop for students to experience Traditional Chinese Culture.

Information:
Tickets are now available to book for the upcoming Supplementary Schools and Families Activity Weekend on the 7th and 8th March 2015.
This event will include an exclusive range of free, interactive activities and workshops on the theme of games and play in the museum’s collection. There will also be the opportunity for groups to take part in a digital activity organised for the event by the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre.

More Information please visit britishmuseum.org
To book your free tickets, email office@huahsia-chinese.org.uk
- Your name
- The number of tickets required
- Your preferred date of visit- either 7th or 8th March
- Your preferred arrival time between 11:00 and 13:00

Although we will still have access to our emails during the holiday the response times will be longer than usual. If the reason for your email is urgent please phone 07840310361 or 07850048597.

In a drastic downgrade from its “good” rating in 2012, Ofsted inspectors have handed down a damning verdict on the inadequacies of the Hill House International School in Knightsbridge, the largest prep school in London attended by over 900 pupils. The future of the school is now uncertain, although it has immediately ordered a safety audit to address any safeguarding failings highlighted by the report.

Ofsted inspectors found the school to be lacking in basic safeguards and roundly criticised it for poor quality of teaching and management. To give you some background, Ofsted seems to have had issues with the school for a long time. Even previous “good” reports had repeatedly criticised safety procedures, lack of compliance with regulations and the lack of ICT instruction at the school. Ofsted inspectors seemed to be particularly unimpressed when the school failed to work on its perceived failings after recent inspections. It is quite likely that the new report, published on 10th March 2015, will force the school to adhere to regulations immediately.

“The health and safety of both pupils and adults in the main school are severely compromised. The health and safety policy is not being implemented across all sites. No one has overall responsibility for health and safety or has had suitable training,” the Ofsted inspectors noted, attaching a long list of concerns, including fire exits that “represent an ever-present danger to pupils and staff”.

Ofsted had harsh words for the school’s management. “Leaders and proprietors do not have the capacity to secure essential improvements. They are not taking any action to secure effective teaching. They do not know if pupils are making the progress of which they are capable.”

Richard Townend, a son of the founder and the current headmaster, told parents in a letter: “While it contains some positive remarks, the [Ofsted] report as a whole does not seem to me to represent the school I run and two of my grandchildren attend nor the tutors who work here.”

Inspectors said they found “at best average attainment in writing and mathematics, … in most subjects, including in writing and mathematics, teaching focuses too much on ensuring older pupils are successful in passing entrance examinations, at the expense of providing more opportunities for pupils to learn in greater depth,” the inspectors found. I must say that this is an observation I made visiting the school as well. The school separates girls and boys early on to prepare them for 11+ and 13+ exams, and much of the preparation is worksheet based. On the other hand, the inspection took place in early December 2014, only weeks ahead of the 11+ tests and 13+ pre-test, so I would imagine at any prep school in the country children would be doing practice papers at that time.

I must add also that I know plenty of happy parents of children at the school (and some unhappy ones), and their exit results are quite impressive, so I wonder if this was in some part a political decision to punish the school for ignoring regulators. If the school indeed faced closure, as some newspaper reports speculated, then God help us, because 930 Hill House children looking to change schools will certainly create pressure on London school places! Hopefully, the pressure created by the report and the parental support generated (as of Saturday 14th March, 740 signatures had been collected in support of the school in a petition of support) will keep the school going.

Still looking for Easter activities or holiday camps for your little ones? The Hua Hsia School in Hampstead is offering a Chinese culture Easter camp for children from 3+. They will have a action packed programme of music, arts and crafts, martial arts, drama and language, all taught by qualified teachers. The camp takes place in Hampstead. Book you place here.

Details of the camps:

Date

07.04.2015 -10.04.2015 & 13. 04.2015- 17.04.2015 (9 days)

Time10:00 – 16:00

Age group 3+

Activities outline:Chinese Brush painting, Chinese chess, Calligraphy, Chinese Art Crafts, Material Arts, Chinese Cookery, Chinese Rhymes and songs and Chinese yo-yo

Price: £40 per day（Early Bird price before 07.03.2015: 20% of fees）

Hua Hsia Chinese School is registered with Ofsted, the Ofsted Registration no. (URN) EY460681. Parents can pay us using Child Care Vouchers.

Most schools have published their 11+ exit results for 2015 by now, while we need to wait until the summer for Common Entrance results. But we do have the results from a few co-educational prep schools already, along with most girls’ schools, at least the important ones. I will update this post as they are released. Currently, we are still awaiting results for Thomas’s, Garden House, Knightsbridge School and a few others.

Co-ed prep schools

Pupils at Cameron House in Chelsea achieved offers from City of London School for Girls, Godolphin and Latymer, Latymer Upper, Wetherby Prep and Westminster Under this year. Interestingly, some children are moving on to ACS Cobham and ACS Hillingdon. Last year, there was a leaver to the Halcyon International School, so you can see how more parents are looking at international schools, probably also because the proportion of expat children is rising at all Central London preps.

Kew College did extremely well (just like last year!), with 3 offers from St Paul’s Girls’ (SPGS) and 2 places offered by Colet Court, out of only 35 candidates. The pupils also won an impressive 9 offers from Latymer Upper School, 9 from the Hampton School, 12 from Godolphin & Latymer, not to mention 10 offers from the Lady Eleanor Holles School! I am pretty sure this is the strongest co-educational prep school in terms of results, especially given that it is non-selective!

Two girls at Hill House won 11+ places at St Paul’s but there were 6 from Latymer Upper, and 1 from Wycombe Abbey. 11+ pre-test results for boys have not been published.

Notting Hill Prep offers include St Paul’s Girls’ School, Latymer Upper and Wycombe Abbey, but no numbers are released.

Thomas’s Schools have not published their 2015 results yet, unfortunately. We’re also awaiting 7+/8+ results for Garden House Boys’ and Eaton House Belgravia. St John’s Wood Pre-Prep has published its impressive 7+ results, with offers from Bute, City, Latymer Prep, NLCS, SHHS and Wetherby. What I have heard a lot this year is that entry to Westminster Under has been terribly competitive, with several siblings as well as maths geniuses getting rejected.

Girls’ prep schools

It looks like Bute House finally has some competition! The most impressive results come from Falkner House and Kensington Prep this year, with 6 (out of 20) and 11 (out of 40) SPGS offers this year, respectively. Bute House have not published their final results yet, but rumour has it that 16 (out of 60) girls were offered places at SPGS. I will update this over the next weeks.

Next best this year is non-selective school Pembridge Hall with 6 offers from St Paul’s (out of 56 candidates). Glendower Prep School has not done as well with only 3 SPGS offers (out of 30 candidates), let’s hope it’s a blip. They did have 9 offers from top boarding school Wycombe Abbey, so potentially they had a higher number of girls aiming for boarding schools this year. If you consider that SPGS only accepts 100 girls per year, it is quite interesting that a handful of girls’ prep schools make up almost 40-50% of the class each year, with the rest of places filled by all other prep and state schools in and around London.

I’d love to include North London prep schools as well but they either haven’t published their results or have only published lists of schools their pupils move on to, no numbers. I have heard through the grapevine that Sarum Hall girls have done quite well this year, with two offers from SPGS. Queen’s College Prep is also sending one girl to SPGS.

I’d also like to add the disclaimer that I don’t think a school should be judged purely on how many pupils get into St Paul’s (or NLCS), but it’s a nice and easy way to create some sort of a ranking without making it too complicated. At least this gives you a very good indicator about the level of selectiveness and “pushiness” of a school, and you can judge for yourself if you think that is a good thing or not!

When a large Central London prep school was rated “Inadequate” by Ofsted in its recent inspection, many parents wondered what to make of school inspection reports. Opinions on this vary widely, with some parents adamant that they would only consider an “outstanding” school for their child, and others dismissing reports as irrelevant. Even among prep school staff I talked to afterwards, many were sympathetic and said that any school could get unlucky if inspected on a bad day. But not everybody would agree. It is therefore important for parents to know what inspection reports can and cannot tell you and how you need to use them in your school search.

What happens during an inspection?

Sarah Gillam at Maple Walk Prep School

Although schools generally know broadly when an inspection is due, only short notice is given before the inspection to make sure schools don’t have time to put on a show for the inspectors. Schools inspected by the ISI are notified of an inspection five working days in advance. The Ofsted timeline is even more demanding, as most schools receive notice of their inspection on the afternoon of the working day before the inspection begins! Before the inspection, Ofsted sends questionnaires to parents and staff to get an overview of their satisfaction with the school. Sarah Gillam, Head Teacher at Maple Walk Prep School in Harlesden, describes what happens during an ISI inspection: “Inspection by ISI is a rigorous and collaborative process. A team of inspectors lead by a reporting inspector enter a school and investigate every aspect of a school. Evidence is evaluated by an inspector and then considered as a team so that a judgement is reached based on the input of the whole team. When assessing the quality of academic and other achievements, the Inspectors use lesson observations, work produced alongside analysis of assessment results and discussions with pupils. ” It is important to note that the size of the inspection team varies with the size of the school.

How to read inspection reports

1. Description of the school
Although much of the initial description is generic and based on information available on school websites (such as age range or the number of pupils), this section might also tell you about the range of nationalities, languages represented and if parents come from far and wide or the immediate neighbourhood, for example. In addition, you often find an indication of the ability profile of pupils at the school. It might say that the average ability profile is far above the national average, or that the school caters for a wide range of abilities. You might also find information on class sizes and the overall ethos of the school.

2. Overall rating
The easiest approach if you don’t have time to read the whole inspection report is to look only at the overall rating, and pick a school that is “Outstanding” (Ofsted) or “Excellent” (ISI). In my experience, some very nice schools are only rated “good” and some less spectacular ones can be rated “outstanding”, but on average, it is actually a very good indicator. Alison Fleming, Head Teacher at Newton Prep, explains: “The reality is that most independent schools will receive a mixture of the two top grades (“Excellent” or “Good”. There is an “Exceptional” grade for children’s achievements only). I would suggest that anything less than “Good” is a slight cause for concern in an independent school.”

There are, however, a few additional aspects to consider. Ofsted in particular changes its priorities from time to time following political or other influence, so an Ofsted report from 2009 would not necessarily be comparable to a recent report. For example, five years ago it was possible for a school to be rated “Outstanding” overall even if the quality of teaching or achievement of pupils was only “good”, as long as many of the other categories were deemed outstanding. This is not the case anymore, which is why some say it has become harder for a school to be rated “Outstanding”, and you will always see some “Outstanding” schools from the past suddenly downgraded to “Good” or even “Requires Improvement”. This is especially true if there has been a change in leadership of a school since the last inspection. A new headteacher can turn around a school that “needs improvement”, or let a previously outstanding school deteriorate.

In addition to those longer term changes, there can even be a tactical issue based on when a school is inspected in the inspection cycle. One West London Head Teacher told me that if you were the first school to be inspected after Ofsted changed its priorities (for example, now they were suddenly looking for diversity and signs of “hello” in fifty languages to be displayed at the entrance), you could get unlucky and be penalised. Heads may then share this information with their colleagues at other schools inspected later, and these would make sure to comply. So it could be easier to get an “outstanding” rating if your inspection came up later in the season.

In addition, as there has been an increasing emphasis on evidence based judgements and hard data, some even go as far as to argue that the actual inspection is less important than the inspectors would have you believe: “I would argue that it is now hard-to-impossible to fool Ofsted. They now arrive having analysed progression data and other KPIs of a school. My understanding is that they arrive looking to justify a decision they have made based on this data“, says one experienced teacher who preferred to remain anonymous.

3. Individual Inspection judgements
The areas covered by inspection reports are: Achievement, Quality of Teaching, Pupil Behaviour, Pastoral Care, Health and Safety, and Governance and Leadership. Which of these you consider the most important can be a personal issue. You might feel that you could forgive a “good” in Achievement as long as Pupil Behaviour is outstanding. But most Heads I spoke to said that if you wanted to single out the most important aspects, you should focus on academic quality and pastoral care.

Inspectors observe if pupils are engaged during lessons

Carlotta O’Sullivan, Head Teacher at Sinclair House School in Fulham, shares the following advice: “I feel that two very important sections of an inspection report are the quality of academic and other achievements, and the quality of pupils’ personal development. These two areas alone will direct how well the school is doing in respect of its aims and ethos. It will also direct how well the school is being lead and managed in terms of safeguarding. It is very important not to mix “bureaucracy” with what is best for a child when choosing a school and reflect on the merits of the school’s education, quality of teaching and the pupils’ personal development”. Sarah Gillam adds: “Parents should look carefully at the quality of pupils’ Personal Development, which gives an insight into the quality and importance given to pastoral care and the overall development of the children. Look at pupil behaviour – does the school’s expectations meet yours?”. In fact, pupil behaviour can give you insights beyond pastoral care, as boredom in the classroom or excess pressure can also cause behavioural problems.

4. What the school needs to do to improve
This is one of my favourite sections. While many other parts of the inspection report seem to be formulaic and generic, this can give important insights into specific weaknesses of the school, as identified by the Inspectors. Sometimes, you may also find that the only weakness identified is either not important to you or even a strength! For example, I once read an inspection report of a lovely Montessori nursery that was rated only “good”, and the only “weakness” highlighted in its report was that the nursery hadn’t integrated the use of ICT into the classroom sufficiently. So if you don’t think it’s important for 3 year olds to learn mouse control or are aware that it is wrong to expect Montessori schools to make extensive use of computers in the classroom, you can disregard it. Sometimes, however, the report might highlight that particularly able children are not stretched enough, or that there is not enough individual support for those children who fall behind, and those issues would certainly be a cause for concern.

Beyond inspection reports
Of course, inspection reports are a great first step when you start to research schools. It is very helpful to check the overall rating at the very least if you don’t want to read further. But all Head Teachers emphasise the importance of a personal visit to the school, above all else, in addition to feedback from current parents. “An inspection report is a poor substitute for a visit to the school (on a normal working day rather than a school ‘open day’)”, according to Alison Fleming.

Should you take into account the opinions of other parents in addition? I would urge caution regarding other people’s opinions, as you need to make sure you don’t confuse opinions of close friends or current parents with “playground gossip”. Even with current parents, the main problem is that most of them tend to be happy and tell you the school is fantastic, and then you meet them two years later and find out they pulled their kid out of the school for one reason or another. If you do find a current parent who is unhappy, that tends to be far more meaningful, although it helps if you know the person enough to gauge if they are one of the notorious “difficult parents” (the kind who send their Head Teacher an angry letter if their 3 year old darling does not win the egg-and-spoon race on sports day). Your own nursery teachers can actually be a great source of information, as they tend to know other teachers at nearby schools from training programmes. They can tell you if staff are happy at their school. But overall, it obviously helps to speak to many parents and see what they say, as long as you don’t rely too much on individual opinion or vague judgements. I once talked to a mum who asked me which schools I was considering for my children and then she dismissed my choice A as “but that’s very academic!” and choice B as “I heard that’s not academic”, all within a two minute conversation; a typical example of unhelpful school gossip!

Which leaves us with a personal visit to the school as a key ingredient of your decision process. Stuart Bamford, Head of Chelsea Pre-Prep and Nursery sums up what you should focus on: “A combination approach to choosing the right school is still the best approach in my opinion. Reading inspection reports is important, however, of equal value is visiting the premises, speaking with staff and the Head, seeing the children in action. It is all about finding the right school for how your child learns and the opportunities it will provide for them”.