I was honoured to be quoted several times in a recent Financial Times article on the trend of wealthy expats hiring consultants to advise them on choosing the best nurseries and schools for their children. The article was more balanced than I expected, as you never know what angle journalists might take on such a topic. But even in a balanced article, it is clear that journalists love the outrageous anecdotes of tiger parents planning their children’s academic and professional future before they can even walk (you can read the article “Paid to advise on the ‘right’ nursery” here).

Everybody loves reading such stories, and the most interesting part is going through the comments at the bottom of the article. What people who get worked up about “tiger parents” sometimes forget is that journalists are very good at picking those quotes and anecdotes that are going to create discussion, while obviously dismissing most of the “boring” stories of reasonable parents just doing what’s best for their children. Yes, I’ve had funny enquiries, my favourite probably coming from a parent determined to maximise their child’s chances of getting into Oxford, and it turned out they weren’t even pregnant yet. But for each one of these, I help expat parents moving here with a child who speaks no or limited English and needs a nursery that has experience with that, or a single working mother whose child was bullied in an international school abroad and just wants to find a school where she knows her daughter will thrive and be happy and a wide range of other parents who want their children to be happy and yes, ideally also receive a great education. But of course, these parents are too reasonable to make it into the newspapers.

Of course, I won’t complain about the publicity, so enjoy the article and just make sure you take everything with a grain of salt!

We have just come back from half-term holidays and it is already time to start planning summer activities! Summer holidays are long at London schools, especially in the private sector, so it is important to plan ahead and find enriching activities for July and August. London offers great opportunities for school aged children in a wide range of areas. Summer camps can be very neighbourhood specific, so you need to ask around what other classmates are doing. Some schools organise their own holiday activities as well. Here’s is an overview of summer camps and activities that we can recommend or have been recommended by other London parents across London:

Sports

The Richmond Gymnastics Association runs professional summer camps for children from Reception age upwards. The camps run on a weekly basis from 9am to 1pm. Henry Lamb Tennis offers summer camps located at Putney High School and Newton Prep School. Darius Knight offers table tennis summer camps for pupils at Newton Prep, Thomas’s and Knightsbridge School, among a few others. We are also big fans of Love Swimming fast track courses held at the luxurious Dolphin Square gym in Pimlico.

Drama and Dance

Perform run drama courses from children 4+ to boost their confidence via fun and games. Theatrebugs run drama camps for kids aged 3 – 7, ending in their own performance at the end of the week. Stagecoach is a well established drama programme for kids. While they run term time activities for children aged as young as four, their holiday camps are for children from 8 to 18 only.

London Children’s Ballet offer summer school for children aged 9 – 12 and 12 – 16. The English National Ballet School offers courses for children aged 11 – 14 and 15 – 19. The Kensington Ballet School runs summer courses for little ballerinas each year.

Technology

For the serious techies, FunTech Camps in North London offer a variety of summer camps ranging from JavaCoding to Minecraft in several North London locations and Richmond. Firetechcamp offer technology and coding classes (including Robotics) for children aged 7 – 18 located at Imperial College in South Kensington. Mad Science camps are geared to younger children from 4 upwards and introduce children to the excitement of exploration and experiments. Camps are offered across London.

Academic

Chelsea Young Writers run acclaimed creative writing workshops run by established children’s authors targeted at age group 7 – 13. If you are looking for serious academics, Leaders are Readers in Harrow offer Reading and Maths as well as 4+ / 7+ / 11+ prep summer camps. I hear children progress very fast here and can attend as young as 3.5, but look at the schedule to decide if you think your child will be up for it during their holidays!

If you’re looking for full day activity camps, Camp Beaumont offers summer camps at King’s College Wimbledon, Mill Hill and Colfe’s among others, while Supercamps runs a Central London camp at St Nicholas Prep School in South Kensington.

Other activities

Of course, you may not actually be looking at camps or childcare and just need inspiration for what to do with your children during the holidays. Here are some of our top things to do with your child this London for the perfect “staycation” in London

• book a Westend show like “Three Little Pigs”, “Mathilda” or “the Gruffalo”
• spend a day outside of London on a farm. Our favourites are Bucklebury farm in Berkshire and Bocketts Farm in Surrey
• a day on the Princess Diana Memorial Playground (come early to beat the crowds!) and/or Battersea Park Zoo
• a creepy crawlies session at the Chelsea Physic Garden or any of their other family activities
• take a ride on the London Eye
• visit the Museum of London Docklands
• spend a day in Greenwich exploring Greenwich Park, Cutty Sark, the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory…
• what are you planning to do in London this summer?

For an opportunity to view North Bridge House Nursery School and what they offer pupils in Pre-Reception and Reception, come along to their Open Day on Thursday 18th June from 9am-11am.

Please note that this event is only for families looking for entry at ages 3+ and 4+ this September.

Join the Open Day to take a look around the school and talk to their Admissions Team.

Signing up for the open day is easy – simply follow this link and fill in the form.

The renowned Haberdasher Aske’s School for Girls (‘Habs’) in Elstree, which currently accepts 20 girls via 4+ assessment and a further 20 at 5+ has announced it will be running its main 5+ intake assessment for the last time next year, in January 2016. The junior school will soon be two-form entry from Reception, selection 40 girls at 4+ in the future. Maybe this is to avoid losing girls to its main competitor North London Collegiate School? It is a shame we are losing this 5+ entry point opportunity for those girls who are not ready for the 4+ assessment yet or somehow need to delay their start. Boys in North London have many options for 5+ entry (Arnold House, The Hall, Haberdasher Aske’s Pre-Prep to name a few), it looks like from now on girls applying later will have to hope for occasional places to arise, or wait for the 7+.

And the top secondary school in London is….  the St Paul’s Girls’ School (again)! The second place goes to Westminster School, followed by the North London Collegiate School. The data is based on the Telegraph’s 2014 independent school league table for all of England, but I included only London schools and have added a few more schools individually that were not included in that table (for example, St Paul’s School for Girls and also the Henrietta Barnett School, which is a state grammar school but can easily compete with the top independent schools). Only the Henrietta Barnett School and Tiffin Girls’ in Kingston made it into the top 20 from the state sector.

Top 20 London schools ranked by % of A*’s in 2014 GCSEs

I like these tables especially to interpret exit results of prep schools, all of which say their pupils go on to the top London senior schools. This table shows you there is still a big difference between schools in the top 5 and those in the 10-20 range.

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The recent inspection by the ISI (Independent Schools Inspectorate) has given Kensington Prep School in Fulham the highest possible grades across the board – and the top accolade rarely received: ‘Exceptional’ for the ‘quality of pupils’ achievement and learning’.
The inspectors’ judgements in all areas are ‘excellent’, the highest grade a school can receive. There is an additional category in one area – the quality of pupil’s achievements and learning – and the school achieved the top grade ‘exceptional’.   Very few schools achieve this top grade.

“We think the five-strong inspection team really got under the skin of Kensington Prep and understood the ethos and atmosphere of this ‘exceptional’ school.  We are delighted that the report is so full of praise for the whole school community – the fantastic staff, girls and parents, together with the Girls’ Day School Trust and local governors, who make Kensington Prep School the wonderful place it is,” says Mrs Prudence Lynch, Head.

The Inspection Report comments about the school include:

‘The quality of the pupils’ achievement and learning is exceptional.’

‘A caring and trusting environment in which pastoral care is given the highest priority’

‘The school is extremely successful in fulfilling its aim to equip all pupils for a changing world that requires, courage, flexibility and resilience’.

‘High standards and academic rigour are enriched by intellectual risk taking’
(ISI Inspection Report June 2015)

More about Kensington Prep School

• Kensington Prep School profile
• London Pre-Prep visit to Kensington Prep School
• 11+ exit results 2015 
• How to read inspection reports

I know it’s very exciting if you receive your first offer of a school or nursery place after fretting about oversubscribed London schools for a couple of years, but today I really need to caution my readers about accepting offer letters if you haven’t done your research or read the terms and conditions closely. I wish I had written this post half a year ago and spread the word earlier, but I truly wasn’t aware of the scale of the problem. But in recent months, from conversations with close friends, readers and clients, I’ve noticed there is an increasing number of people who accept offers on a tentative basis without knowing what the legal implications are.

It is a problem for parents and schools alike. Parents are getting themselves into situations where they become liable for school fees at schools they don’t want their children to attend, and schools have less and less transparency about which parents actually want to send their kids to their school, rather than just keeping their options open for as long as possible. It has become quite common, especially among international parents, to accept places at three or four private schools at the same time. Perhaps because many parents work in finance, they see this as a way of buying a cheap option, and some think a £500, £1,000 or £2,000 deposit is a small price to pay in order to have an additional six months to make a decision on school places.

There are some problems with this approach already. For one, schools that have seen too many parents jump off at the last minute keep raising their deposits and asking for them earlier and earlier, which has hurt many of the other parents who are actually serious about the school. In addition, parents are blocking places that families on the waiting list might be very keen on, but at some point, if you are stuck on the waiting list, you are forced to accept your second choice offers, and when you then get your first choice offer at the last minute, it may be too late or you will lose your deposit at the second choice school.

One common problem is that non-selective schools that offer places by date of registration want to lock in families early, usually 12 months but sometimes even 18 months before the start date, so many people are forced to accept a place at a non-selective school and then wait for the outcome of 4+ assessments at selective schools, which tends to happen around 8 months before the start date only. There are actually ways around this, if you talk to the schools openly. It depends on the school, but my daughter received an offer from a non-selective school a year before entry, asking for a £2,000 deposit. Instead of accepting it, I wrote the school a kind letter saying that I was very much interested in the place, but that our first choice was a selective school nearby, and that I would be able to commit to the place for sure only in January. I asked to kindly keep me on the waiting list, and they did. I am not suggesting this will work at Wetherby or Pembridge Hall, but it will probably work for many other non-selective schools. In the end, as much as schools like to pocket deposits, the registrars actually want to know who on their list is really serious about a place and they will appreciate the honesty, as it makes their job of filling places easier.

Losing your deposit is, however, only a small part of the problem when you accept multiple places. Far more important is the issue of tuition fees that you will have to pay eventually. I was shocked to find out that many parents who sign offer letters do not actually understand when they become liable for school fees. Two friends of mine recently told me they did not have to worry about the fees because they had not received an invoice yet, so they still had time to make up their minds. I had to break the news that you can be legally liable for paying the school fees regardless of the fact that you have or have not received the invoice, it is irrelevant. It is like the British citizenship, you can be a British citizen by birth no matter if you have applied for a passport or not. In this case, at most schools you become liable for school fees at the beginning of the term preceding your entry to the school (i.e. the beginning of summer term or mid April if your child is starting in September of that year). So you become liable for the autumn term fees the first day of the summer term. This is because at least one term’s notice is required when you want to withdraw your place, and unfortunately many people don’t really know what that means. They think they can cancel their place in June because they haven’t received an invoice yet, but it’s not the case. If you haven’t cancelled your place by April, you have to pay the autumn term’s fees. Of course, you can beg the school for mercy, and some are old school and will indeed show flexibility, but more and more schools are run as businesses and might well hire lawyers as soon as parents don’t pay up. Even schools registered as charities might do this, so don’t count on mercy.

What I strongly recommend is studying the terms of conditions of each school when you sign the offer letter. If you don’t want to read the ten or fifteen pages, at the very least read the section titled “Notice of withdrawal” or “Withdrawal of a place”. It is perhaps no coincidence that the summer term starts before you know the outcome of state school allocations, so most people are forced to accept a private school place and become liable for fees before they know if they got a place at the outstanding state primary school next door. What are you to do in such a case? Most prep school contracts actually contain a clause about “preliminary notice of withdrawal”, so you can send the school a letter just before the beginning of summer term notifying that you might have to withdraw your child (preliminary notice) subject to information that you will receive in two weeks time, and then if you confirm your withdrawal at the agreed date two weeks into the summer term, they would usually let you off the hook. It’s important to check this before hand though, as the terms and conditions usually state that the Head of the school has discretion either way.

I hope this makes the implications of accepting offer letters clearer to many of you, and I will make sure to promote this post towards the end of this year to protect the next year’s families from the pitfalls of private school offers!

Following my recent post highlighting the top ten most affordable private schools in London, I was asked by a couple of readers to do a ranking of the most expensive private schools in London. I thought that could be a very interesting list! It’s not easy to compile an exact ranking because not all schools quote fees are quoted based on the same terms (inclusive of lunches or school trips, music lessons and so forth), but I have tried as much as possible to exclude the cost of lunches from the below data, which tend to add another £700 – £1000 pounds annually. So please allow a margin of error in terms of the exact position of each school, but the list below will give you a very good indication of the schools with the highest fees. Many of the most expensive British prep schools are located in the neighbourhoods with the highest property prices, which probably comes as no surprise! The fees quoted below tend to be those for the Reception class (or equivalent at the international schools). Obviously, many many private British secondary schools have much higher fees (lead by St Paul’s School, if I remember correctly), so take this as a ranking of private primary school costs only.

And London’s most expensive private school is…. (drumroll please)… the American School in London (ASL!), hooray! Closely followed by Southbank International School. This may not come as a big surprise. International schools tend to be far more expensive than British school, not so much because of their staff ratio or facilities, but because they historically had a lot of customers on expat packages whose employers covered the fees. In all fairness, ASL does have a financial aid programme akin to American universities, so it is possible to apply even if you cannot afford the fees. Here is the list of London’s most expensive private schools:

Northwood Prep will henceforward be known as Merchant Taylors’ Prep; this formal union of the two schools will establish a ‘through school’ experience for boys at the school for the first time, the only such school in the Northwood area. The former Northwood Prep, now Merchant Taylors’ Prep, joins St John’s School as a member of the Merchant Taylors’ Educational Trust.

Speaking on behalf of Northwood Prep, Head of School Dr Karen McNerney said, “We are delighted about this alliance. We believe it will offer our boys and their parents significant academic, extracurricular and pastoral benefits. In providing a through school experience, we will be able to offer a much more personalised learning experience to pupils and improve our ability to meet the needs of the brightest and best pupils in both schools.”

Speaking on behalf of Merchant Taylors’ School, Head Master Simon Everson said, “This alliance is a natural evolution of the relationship we have long had with Northwood Prep. We have, for many years, enjoyed a shared ethos, shared history, shared community, and shared ambition. Together, we combine an outstanding academic record with a commitment to helping our pupils achieve their full potential. We believe the all-through experience we establish for our pupils will become, in time, greater than the sum of its parts. As well as retaining our separate identities, we will create new traditions and a new shared history, underpinned by the academic, sporting, and artistic excellence we will achieve together.”

Are you applying for primary school places to start Reception in September 2016? 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 the expansion of Sheen Mount School have eased the pressure. 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, if not less. 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 2016 brochure, so we will take the stats from the 2015 for now and update the post as soon as the new information is published. The popular Christopher Hatton Primary near Holborn had a catchment area of 0.3 miles, a welcome increase from the 0.03 miles the year before! Eleanor Palmer Primary’s catchment area, often discussed in the press, was still a tiny 0.1 miles! Fleet Primary at 0.27 miles and Torriano Infants at 0.18 miles have also shrunk, so overall catchment areas in Camden are very small across the board, be prepared!

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 0.19 miles from the school! It was even tougher to get into Fox Primary, with the furthest pupil admitted living 0.057 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, 22 places were allocated within this distance!). Thomas Jones Primary near Ladbroke Grove is just mildly better with the furthest distance at 0.0995 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 Chelsea and South Kensington I thought “I wonder which fancy prep school that is!”. Only the Garden House School comes close in terms of style! And at the increasingly popular Colville Primary School, the catchment area has shrunk to 0.45 miles, still not as impossible as others, but likely to shrink further in coming years, following its “outstanding” Ofsted rating and strong test results.

Hammersmith and Fulham

The catchment area of the popular All Saints Church of England primary school luckily widened a bit this year, with open places allocated up to a distance of 0.31 of a mile (vs 0.09 mile in 2014). The popular bilingual French Lycee programme at L’ecole Marie d’Orliac was heavily oversubscribed again, but smartly switched to an admission system via lottery to prevent parents from moving into Clancarty Road to gain a place. The newly opened West London Free School Primary in Hammersmith had a catchment area of 0.49 miles in its third year. New King’s Primary, which has been undersubscribed for many years, has converted into an academy under the lead of Thomas’s London Day Schools, and has now become oversubscribed, with only families living within 0.76 of a mile allocated a place.

Islington
Further East, catchment areas are no wider, with the most popular schools’ catchment areas in Islington shrinking slightly at most schools compared to the year before:
Canonbury 0.38 of a mile (not so bad!)
Grafton 0.21 of a mile
Thornhill 0.34 of a mile
William Tyndale 0.24 of a mile
Yerbury Primary School 0.27 of a mile (slightly better than in 2014)
Keep in mind please that these distances just show you retrospectively what the cut-off distance for admission was in 2015, 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 0.18 of a mile from the school only, since there were 46 (out of 60) siblings this year! Hampden Gurney CE Primary School, one of the the top performing schools by test results, only accepted applicants who are avid and practicing members of the Church of England, as always.

Lewisham
Grinling Gibbons is London’s top performing state primary school if you look at SATS results. Its catchment area in 2015 was a tiny 217 metres.

Bromley
Burnt Ash Primary in Bromley with a last offer distance of 1.24 miles looks like a piece of cake in comparison, as does Clare House with 0.32 miles. Offer distance at the popular Pickhurst Infant Academy helpfully increased to 1.3 miles (up from 0.47 of a mile), while a tough one to get into in 2015 was the Valley Primary with an offer distance of 0.27 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:

Coldfall 0.35  (0.38 in 2014)
Coleridge 0.34 (0.3211 in 2014)
Muswell Hill 0.30 (0.2374 in 2014)
Rhodes Avenue 0.33 (0.3557 in 2014)
Tetherdown 0.45 (0.3565 in 2014)

Barnet
The council of Barnet is still updating final information for the 2016 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 0.30 and the equally outstanding Garden Suburb Infant School a catchment area of 0.83, 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 0.98 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  0.267 miles only. High performing Whitchurch Junior School looks better with a cut-off distance of 0.68 miles, as does Cannon Lane Primary School at 0.69 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. If you look at the cut-off distances below, you will understand while I usually advise newcomers to London to move to Richmond if they want less stress about state school admissions. Keep in mind that Richmond is big, though, so 500 metres can be less than you think.

School                  Distance in metres
Barnes Primary  232
East Sheen Primary  802 - hooray
Marshgate Primary 778
Sheen Mount Primary 734
Thomson House 551
The Vineyard Primary 990

Wandsworth
Belleville Primary School - applicants living up to a distance of 474 metres.
Brandlehow Primary School – this is another hidden gem of an outstanding, high performing school with a cut-off distance of 556 metres.
Honeywell Infant School - is too well-known unfortunately, only applicants living up to a distance of 189 metres got lucky
Wix School - Bilingual class of the Wix Primary School offered in cooperation with the French Lycee – 7 siblings admitted, others up to 177 metres – this is a big improvement from ZERO in 2014!

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GCSE results for 2015 are out and the usual suspects in the top 5 are dominating the league table again. A few schools have shot up the ranking quite markedly, such as Highgate and Wimbledon High School. UCS in Hampstead just narrowly missed out on a spot in the top 20. The only school yet to publish their 2015 GCSE results is St Paul’s School in Richmond, which would likely make it into the top 5 as always. We will update as soon as they publish their results.

The below ranking is based on the % of A* among all GCSE entries of the school. Why A* and not the more common ranking based on A-A*? Because there is a big difference between getting an A or an A* in terms of the mastery of the subject that is required, so only the percentage of A* gives us the true picture of the highest performing schools.

Ranking based on A-Levels becomes trickier because a) there is a big difference in the number of subjects chosen by pupils at this stage, enabling a school that limits pupils to three or four A-Level subjects in their chosen subjects to outperform schools that encourage a broader and more challenging selection of subjects and b) at the Sixth Form level, some top schools offer the IB as well as the A-Level, which makes it hard to know what reflects a particular school and what reflects only the subsegment of pupils who choose the A-Level rather than the IB, and lastly c) more and more schools have an additional intake of pupils into their Sixth Form based on GCSE results, so top schools can cream of the best candidates from other schools. Boys’ schools such as Westminster and King’s College now admit girls into their co-ed Sixth Forms, which means their A-level results only show the final outcome of the co-ed cohort, some of which have only been at the school for two years.

With that in mind, here are the top 20 senior schools in London by GCSE results 2015:

In early October, I attended a debate calling for an end of the “Tyranny of the Test”, a motion supported by Tony Little, recently departed Eton Headmaster, and Tristram Hunt, former shadow education secretary for the Labour Party. Former Wellington Master Sir Anthony Seldon moderated the debate, while Toby Young, founder of the West London Free School, and Daisy Christodoulou, Head of education research at the charity Ark, spoke against the motion and in defence of testing.

It was a rare chance to hear Tony Little speak before he takes off to Dubai to work with GEMS education, so I went to the Emmanuel Centre, located just behind Westminster Abbey, on a beautiful October evening.

To be honest, I did not expect to hear any surprising arguments, especially on the side arguing against tests. Tests put children under pressure and force teachers to narrow down the curriculum in order to avoid consequences associated with low test results. What is more, they test easily quantifiable and simple skills in order to facilitate consistent marking, while failing to capture advanced and complex skills that are seen as particularly necessary in the future. Indeed, these were the main points put forward by Tony Little and Tristram Hunt.

It is interesting that we keep hearing in the media that there is too much emphasis on tests and that children are stressed out because they take too many gruelling exams. When you actually look at it, children in this country hardly take any tests at all. The first formal test takes place in Year 6, at the end of Key Stage 2 in the form of SATS exams. There are some evaluations of children earlier on, but they take place in the classroom based on teacher assessments, so there is no formal test children sit until they are 10 or 11. In most private schools, children do not even take the SATS test, but they usually do the 11+ instead, which is entirely optional for parents (although, of course, your range of options can be severely limited if you opt out of it as a parent).

At the age of 15, children take GCSE exams, and then at age 17 or 18, children take A-Level exams. So, if you look at it closely, there is one exam after 7 years, then another one 5 years later, and then another one 2 years later. It is not exactly a “Tyranny of the Test”, and even if schools do teach toward the test and prepare for them, there seems to be ample time in between to enrich the curriculum and teach a wide range of topics and skills. I actually wonder if the “Tyranny” is only experienced by teachers and headmasters, since from their perspective, every year another cohort of pupils takes either the SATS (for a primary school head or a Year 6 teacher) or the GCSE and A-Level exams (for a secondary school head). They obviously face pressure every year and worry about the consequences they may face in the case of disappointing results.

Of course, you may think it would be great if inspirational teachers weren’t accountable to anyone and could teach as they pleased without having to show measurable progress in their pupils. And in the case of the exceptional teacher, that may well be true. In reality though, there is a huge issue if you do not measure progress in some form. How will you identify those teachers who do not actually teach anything at all? Or the children who are not making progress? Does this not create a lack of transparency, which will likely result in lower educational outcomes?

Daisy Christodoulou made a powerful case for the importance of tests and data, and she was the only speaker backing up her claims with reliable scientific evidence. She showed that if you abolish tests, these need to be replaced by something else, which is usually a subjective teacher evaluation. Even though that sounds lovely in theory, it has been shown that these are far more prone to biases, such as underestimating girls in Maths, underestimating ethnic minorities, overestimating boys’ abilities in Maths, and so on.

Having suffered from these subjective teacher evaluations in my own school career, I was glad she brought this up. In my times, your final grade was a combination of written test results, which only made up 40% of your final mark, and your oral participation in the classroom, which made up 60%. This was designed to encourage children to cooperate and contribute in class, rather than just coasting in the back of the room and then acing exams. The problem was that the subjective part now became more important than your test result, which also meant that your teacher could arbitrarily set your grade if he did not like you or had decided you were average. I remember very well one history teacher who gave me a ‘B” in oral participation, even though I had achieved A*s in all three exams that term. So I got an overall grade of B+, despite having the highest test scores in class. Some other children could obtain an A- even if they scored B’s on the actual tests. When I went to complain about this, he actually said “you are overestimating your own abilities!”, which I thought was really interesting, given that I had consistently scored A*s on the actual exams. I know in a dreamworld all teachers are enthusiastic, lovely, inspirational people who transform children’s lives for the better, and I am sure many set out with that idea initially, but anybody who has gone to school has probably met too many other teachers who did not live up to that ideal.

Of course, some teachers will say they have only lost enthusiasm for their jobs because of the relentless testing and government intervention, but coming from a country where there is as good as no standardised testing, no data, no transparency, I can tell you teachers are no more enthusiastic about their jobs over there, and unfortunately, because there is no data, they have a job for life and no-one even knows who the good and the bad teachers are (except for their own pupils). Even when you pick a school, you have no idea how the children do in terms of exam results when they leave school. You can choose the one that looks most “middle class” or that has an interesting curriculum, but you really wouldn’t be able to get any further information as a prospective parent.

Speakers against the motion also emphasised that the act of taking a test itself enhances learning and helps children to store information in long term memory. Most children and even university students only actually study hard when they have a test coming up, so I can definitely believe that this is true. If there were less tests, maybe the majority of children would study less and therefore learn less?

My disagreement with the “Let’s end the Tyranny of the Test” motion grew even further when they started talking about job markets of the future and skills required in the 21st century. Tristram Hunt brought forward the common claim that “nobody knows what the jobs of the future require” and that group work and emotional intelligence were of paramount importance – speakers for the motion worried that these essential skills would be neglected by schools if they were only focused on Maths and English results. I do agree that social skills are critical, although I would argue that they have always been, but indeed in the past, they may have been marginalised in school curricula, which was a mistake. But I really do not agree that we do not know at all what sort of skills might be useful in a future dominated by modern technology. Here is my guess as to which skills will be very important:

• Basics of spelling, grammar and written expression
• Reading comprehension
• Maths
• Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics and their interfaces)
• Logical thinking
• Critical thinking

If anything, in the future we will need even more emphasis on Maths and Sciences than in the past, which are areas perfectly suited for objective testing. There is some vague notion that children of the future need to be creative visionaries, but if I was to guess who was going to invent an amazing new technology, it is most likely going to be someone with a very solid knowledge of the basics of Sciences and Engineering to begin with. There is no mystery here. I really doubt anyone who struggles with reading complex passages, basics of Maths or logical thinking will be prepared for the job market of the future, no matter what it looks like. I would even argue that to be a skilled software architect one day, it would be more useful to study Maths, Physics and Latin than to play graphic games or create interactive movies on the ipad, which are these modern tasks many schools like to introduce to their pupils to “prepare them for the 21st century”.

Despite all this, a majority of the audience in the room agreed with the motion “Let’s End the Tyranny of the Test” by the end of the debate. At the same time, most parents still choose schools based on their position in the league tables, which gives me hope that most people actually know test results are meaningful, to some degree.

St Anthony’s School in Hampstead / Golders Green is delighted to announce that they will open a new Catholic Girls’ School in September 2016. The school will be called St Anthony’s School for Girls and will be located in Ivy House, on North End Road, NW11.

Ivy House is a magnificent three storey building with a beautiful façade, overlooking Golders Hill Park and with a large terrace to the rear. It is the former home of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and of the prima ballerina, Anna Pavlova and was also at one time occupied by the painter, JMW Turner.

The new school will be a two-form entry school, which will educate girls from age 4 -11. Classes in Reception and Year 3 will open in September 2016 and growth will be organic after that, with Year 1 and Year 4 opening in September 2017 and so on. The maximum roll will be 280.

The Diocese of Westminster has graciously granted a new Catholic school for Girls to be opened to complement the Catholic Boys’ school as a welcome expansion to Catholic provision in the area. The new school will be run with the same ethos and values as the existing St. Anthony’s School for Boys in Hampstead.

The school will teach pupils in a Catholic environment, and will be inclusive and open to other faiths. The school will be both academic and caring, setting high educational standards as well as being deeply focused on nurturing the individual, developing respect and creating an environment in which kindness is a core value. It will have a family atmosphere, which will be informal yet structured.

The building has an area of 12,000 square feet, and there will now be a programme of refurbishment to create the very best teaching space which will include 14 classrooms, specialist science and art rooms, as well as a multi-purpose hall for dining, drama and other purposes.

For further information about the new school, please contact St Anthony’s School for Boys on 020 7431 1066.

Advice and insights for the 2016 exams
by guest author Faisal Nasim, tutor and director of Exampapersplus.co.uk (see further info and bio below)

The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the topics and styles that came up last year as well as to offer advice on how best to prepare. The article is relevant to anyone considering the 7+ or 8+ for their child, but it is especially relevant for those doing so in London for the following schools:

• Colet Court
• Westminster Under School
• King’s Wimbledon
• Latymer Prep
• City of London School for Girls
• Bute House
• South Hampstead High School
• Highgate
• Haberdasher’s
• Forest
• Bancroft’s
• Wetherby
• Sussex House
• Dulwich Prep
• Dulwich College
• Alleyn’s

English

Examination formats can differ but the core areas tested are similar across the board: Comprehension, composition, spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Generally speaking, comprehension answers are expected in full sentences though there are some schools that partially test in multiple-choice format. One comprehension passage at 7+ from one of the harder schools came from ‘The HodgeHeg’ by Dick King-Smith, so that should give you an idea of the level expected. Comprehensions vary greatly in difficulty and length. Some are not designed to be finished.

For composition, the format could be an informal letter, diary entry, news report or descriptive writing. Descriptive writing can be a continuation of the comprehension passage. If this is the case, then there is likely to be another option too. Unless the child has fully understood the comprehension text, the other option is usually a better choice. One school set the task of responding to a letter from Peter Pan. Another example was to write a letter to a foreigner explaining the sports that you like to play. One school asked children to draw a diagram of three things that were important in their life and then write a short paragraph on each to explain why they were important. Some schools like to use image-based prompts such as cartoons or storyboards. Other common questions include telling a story from the perspective of a certain character or writing a story that involves certain objects or characters, such as a key or a witch.

Linked to this, one school set a task entitled ‘All about me’ where students were asked to draw a picture of their interests and then label them. This information was then likely fed into interviews. Another school asked students to draw a self-portrait.

Spelling, grammar and punctuation are tested via the comprehension and composition but are also often examined separately. This could be via a spelling test, dictation, word search or short exercises where spelling and punctuation errors had to be identified and corrected.

Advice for the English section

For those struggling with comprehension, it often helps to think of it as a puzzle, where all the clues are contained within the text. The harder ones tend to include at least a few words that students are not necessarily expected to know but rather to make an educated guess at from the context.

Many workbooks that parents use to practise comprehension do not leave enough lines for children to respond in full sentences. In this case, ask your child to write their responses on a separate piece of lined paper.

Quality is better than quantity when it comes to composition. 15 well-written lines with good spelling, handwriting, punctuation and wide-ranging vocabulary will usually score higher than most. Mixing up tenses is a common error that is easily avoided. Whilst you should definitely not encourage your child to memorise stories, it is useful for them to have practised using a few ‘power-words’ in different contexts and perhaps a simile and metaphor that can be applied easily in different stories. In general, the rule of often applying an adjective to each noun and an adverb to each verb tends to help too. It is very important that they read the instructions carefully and are writing in the correct tense, persona and perspective required.

Mathematics

Maths sections tend to be challenging and are often designed to make it very difficult to finish. Mental Arithmetic is occasionally also tested in verbal form so this is worth preparing for. Some schools allow working out in this section and others do not, applying short time limits before moving on to the next question. Magic squares seemed to be popular this year.

The first part of the paper will usually focus on basic arithmetic skills before more complicated concepts are tested. At 7+ this year, one school asked, ‘What is half of 9?’. Most exams will also feature a number of progressively challenging word problems that require two or three steps of calculation. There will also likely be a ‘stretch’ question or two which most will not be able to solve. For example, at 8+ this year, one school asked boys to calculate the square root of 9.

Advice for the Mathematics section

Having a solid grasp of times tables is key to doing well in 7+ and 8+ Maths. It will allow students to work quickly and confidently through the earlier parts of the paper and equip them with the tools to approach the harder questions later on. Whilst many schools will claim that only the 2, 5 and 10 times tables are tested at 7+, they often go beyond this in the exam. For example, the first question last year on one 7+ paper was 7 x 8.

Always show working, especially for word problems. Even if the solution is incorrect, students can often score many of the marks available if they can show they were on the right track with their method. There will almost always be questions covering money, fractions, time and sequences so these are all worth preparing for.

Reasoning

Not all schools test this, so do check individually. Some may test Verbal Reasoning but not Non-Verbal Reasoning. Verbal Reasoning may test analogies. For example, last year one 8+ question asked, ‘France is to Paris as Spain is to…’. Other questions may test the range of a student’s vocabulary by asking them to identify synonyms and antonyms. Non-Verbal Reasoning is most often based on symbols and shapes rather than pictures. Questions such as finding the odd one out or the next shape in a sequence are common.

Advice for the Reasoning section

Reasoning tends to fall into defined and limited question types and these can be easily practised. There are defined techniques and methods that allow students to approach questions systematically and quickly improve their scores. It’s definitely worth preparing for this section as students may not have had exposure to these types of questions before.

Interviews and Assessment Days

Interviews and assessment days are usually held a week or so after the written examination. In this case, schools tend to invite back around two candidates for every available space. Some schools conduct the interview on the same day as the examination whilst one conducts the interview a month before.

Interviews are often conducted in small groups of around five. One common exercise is to read a short text aloud and then the children are asked questions to test understanding. Some maths problems and puzzles also feature a drawing task such as producing a sketch of a building. At 8+, one school asked students to write a poem. Students are often taken to the library to work on small projects. The focus of the interview can vary from child to child. For example, if they did less well on the maths examination, they may be asked more arithmetic questions in the interview.

One-on-one interviews tend to focus on the obvious things such as hobbies and interests. Some schools interview the parents too. This tends to be rather informal, asking why you chose the school and what your child does after school, for example.

Some schools run specific group assessment days. These tend to be fun activities such as creating stories and reading them out to the group, cutting out numbers from sheets and making charts, playing snakes and ladders and maths games. Sometimes, there will also be time allocated for outdoor play.

Advice for Interviews and Assessment Days

Interviews tend to be relaxed and are not designed to be intimidating. Whilst it can be useful for children to prepare some thoughts in more general terms, it is not advised to over rehearse exact responses. For assessment days, schools are looking for children who are bright and inquisitive but who are also able to listen and follow instructions as well as those who respect the opinions of others and get on well in a group setting.

General thoughts and advice

The 7+ and 8+ exams are designed to be challenging and to go beyond the requirements of the syllabus. Many children are coming from schools where they are used to scoring 95% in tests. As such, they can become disheartened when they perform less well on a practice paper. It’s important that they realise that it’s a different type of test where they are not expected to get everything correct. The 7+ pass mark at one top school last year was around 73%. The key to doing well is to develop good exam technique, allowing children to work quickly and accurately, thus picking up as many marks as they can.

Your child doesn’t need to be a genius to gain a place. Of course, they need to be relatively intelligent but a little practice can go a long way. The difference between gaining entry or not often appears to be the ability to avoid careless errors and to do the basics well.

If your child attends a pre-prep, their current school may advise you to avoid the 7+ and focus on the 8+. This may be sound advice as many children are not mature enough to sit through three hours of testing at such a young age. However, this advice can sometimes be inappropriate and guided by a school’s desire to keep your child (and your fees) for an extra year. Every year, we hear of cases where parents were advised that their child was not ready for 7+ yet they went on to gain admission at their desired school. Even if your child is unsuccessful at the 7+, the experience is invaluable and many then go on to do well at 8+.

If you are looking for further practice material, take a look at our 7+ and 8+ range on exampapersplus.co.uk. We update the papers regularly to make sure they are as accurate as possible.

Most parents in London know how oversubscribed French schools in London are and how (almost) impossible it is to get into the French Lycée in South Kensington. But if you are keen on the Lycée Charles de Gaulle but can’t get a place, would you be interested if the top ranked secondary school in France, the École Jeannine Manuel in Paris, opened its very own London campus? Well, many parents’ prayers have been heard because this is indeed what happened in September 2015.

Located in three adjacent townhouses on Bedford Square, a short walk from Covent Garden and Russel Square, practically next to the British Museum , the École Jeannine Manuel opened in September with its first 185 pupils from the equivalent of Reception to Year 8, and will grow steadily over the next years to 1,000 pupils from nursery (Petite Section) to 18, offering a choice of the French Baccalaureate and the IB.

But this is no ordinary French School, and it is quite different from other international schools, too. The school will use the French curriculum in French and Maths, and the best of all systems in other subjects. Even where the curriculum is French, the Headmistress tells me their teaching methods are not. Teachers work hard to make sure children are enthusiastic, engaged and involved in hands-on activities.

The school offers a truly bilingual education in French and English, which are both taught to the same high standard, and in addition, children learn Mandarin from Year 4 / CE2 (which can only be dropped a few years later if Latin is taken up instead) and either Italian, Spanish or German from Year 9. Children will therefore graduate with a minimum of three languages.

École Jeannine Manuel is new to London, but it has been a very established bilingual international school in Paris since 1954 with an outstanding track record. Last year, 9 leavers from the French school went on to study in Oxbridge, and the school has strong links with Ivy League universities in the US. Its London campus is therefore not so much a new school but an annexe to its sister school in Paris. In fact, London Headmistress Pauline Prévot spent 12 years at École Jeannine Manuel in Paris previously, and all new staff teaching in London initially spend time at the Paris school for training.

Fees are higher than at most French schools, at around £5,500 per term, but the school offers bursaries and aims to provide financial aid to 20% of its student body. As a first step in the admissions process, interested parents may arrange an appointment after attending a school presentation. The school  then meets each child, either individually or in a small group. The school admits students who will benefit from an enriched, bilingual, bicultural curriculum and whose parents embrace the school’s mission of international understanding and are deeply invested in the education and well being of their children. École Jeannine Manuel welcomes non French-speaking students at all levels (though they would need exceptional language ability to be able to catch up if they are already teenagers) and helps them adapt to the demands of a bilingual curriculum. As well, the school welcomes beginners in English up to Year 9 and leads them to a high degree of oral and written proficiency in both languages.

Because the school welcomes children with very little French or very little English and offers them a very international education, it attracts francophone as well as anglophone and international families. They have already 33 different nationalities among the students and as they grow they would like to welcome more international families. Visiting this school, I had a strong feeling we will hear much more about École Jeannine Manuel in the coming years! What a fantastic addition to the London school scene!

For other French schools, read the Overview of French schools in London.

Honeywell Infant and Junior School is one of those well known and oversubscribed state primary schools in London, which is why I was in two minds about writing this review. You already have to live within 150 metres to have any chance of a place at this school, so I don’t want to make the situation worse by publicising it. But what can we do, my mission is to provide transparency for parents who want to learn about the best schools in London, so I decided to visit Honeywell on its recent open day for prospective parents and get the insider view.

Honeywell School is located in the heart of Nappyvalley, just off Northcote Road in Clapham. Just a five minute walk from Belleville Primary, another outstanding state primary, this area attracts many young parents strategically choosing a house in the right catchment area. This has gotten so extreme that the council has now proposed changing admissions criteria so that siblings will only receive a place if they still live within 500 metres of the school at the time of application.

At the same time, you can very much feel that there is a hard core of original loyal Clapham residents who are very involved in their schools. On the way to the open day, one could spot many groups of Clapham mums discussing the latest gossip. But French was clearly another important language at the school gate, as well as a bit of Russian. Honeywell School has a reputation for being an informal school, and it is one of the few state primaries in this side of town that does not require children to wear a school uniform. Apart from the school uniform, it is noticeable that the playful and creative approach from the Early Year Foundation Stage carries on into Years 1 and 2, in line with the school’s ethos to develop a love for learning in the children. The most striking feature of the school are its spacious and adventurous outdoor facilities that include climbing frames, a pirate ship, a pond, and many others. Because I recently met a couple who were adamant they could only send their children to private schools in London because state school playgrounds were always just sad concrete patches, you can see pictures of the school playground in this post to give you an idea what a state school playground can look like. Many private schools in London can only dream of such a playground.

While the school fosters an informal environment, all the children I met were noticeably well behaved, friendly and well spoken. Quite a few of the children I spoke to had joined the school not in the nursery or Reception but in higher year groups. The school is oversubscribed, but as one teacher explained, being in London, there are always people moving to the country or abroad, so occasional vacancies tend to arise frequently, which is good news for those on the waiting list.
Many teachers at the school seemed very committed and proud of their school, and they had been at the school for a very long time. Many parents seem equally proud and involved, making this very much a school with strong community links and parent support, which may explain some of its success, along with the experienced and enthusiastic teachers.
In the higher year groups, work starts to look more serious and formal, as children prepare for the SATS, their Wandsworth Test or the 11+ exams. According to one parent, about 40% of the children move on to private secondary schools. Of those who move to state schools, the new Bollingbroke Academy in Clapham as well as Graveney School are the most popular choices. Those who go private tend to opt for nearby Emmanuel School in Clapham or South London schools such as JAGS, Alleyn’s, Dulwich College or Whitgift.
In conclusion, this is a happy, creative school with dedicated and enthusiastic staff and parents. The facilities are second to none. It is a busy and informal school, so it might not suit the quiet child who thrives in a structured or calm environment, but for many children, especially those who like action, freedom and exploration, this is a great place to start their education.
Admissions: Honeywell Infant School has a nursery class that accepts children in the September following their 3rd birthday. Applications are made directly to the school. There are morning, afternoon and a few full-time places. A place in the nursery does not guarantee a place in the main school, though most children move on to the main school from here. Siblings usually take many of the Reception places, the remaining places are allocated based on distance, as in most community primary schools. Being located in the Nappyvalley with many families living in adjacent houses, only those living within 100 – 150 metres tend to get offered places in the Reception classes here.

Visiting nurseries and schools is a key part of choosing the right one for your child. Unfortunately, if your child is still little and you have no experience of nurseries, it is actually not easy to spot what a great nursery should look like, and most nurseries are experienced at showing their best side during visits.

In my experience, very young parents tend to pay too much attention to superficial aspects of a nursery (beautiful wallpaper, a nice reception area, a friendly and talkative teacher showing them around) and effective PR (a nursery seeming oversubscribed, having a great website, a cute uniform, an impressive looking curriculum or extra-curriculars). They may not be as good at spotting how experienced and professional the staff is, how happy and engaged the children are and if there is a very good chance their child will thrive in a particular nursery.

An outstanding nursery would usually take ample time to show parents around and answer any questions patiently and in detail. They also tend to be very relaxed about visitors observing the children and encourage you to walk around independently to talk to the children or teachers and observe their activities. Less impressive nurseries tend to try to keep visitors away from the action and take them to a side room to give a long marketing speech, without giving you much time to actually observe what is going on in the classroom. They may be nervous that you see something you might not like (staff getting impatient with children, an unsettled child who wants to go home).

The first thing you should pay very close attention to is the qualification and experience of teachers, first of all the head teacher but also any staff member who works with the children. And this means not so much their qualification on paper only but their knowledge of how children learn and how to adapt your style to each child, as well as their long experience working with children. Some nurseries in Central London are quite expensive but hire very junior staff who come and go to boost their profits, and that’s fairly easy to spot. I always ask head teachers and any other teacher I get to speak to how long they have been working at this particular nursery and at which nursery or school they were before this. This will also give you an idea of staff turnover.

Facilities are also very important, they are not everything but for little children, a garden or small playground and enough space and light inside to move around and explore, especially in London, is very important. But make sure you pay more attention to outdoor space and the setup of the classroom indoors (are there different areas for children to explore or rest?) than beautiful wallpaper and fancy tiles.

Most importantly, observe the children. When you visit, you can often spot straight away if children are engaged in play and busy, building a tower or a boat, baking, painting, resting in the book corner listening to stories read by a teacher or role playing with their friends. Usually in a great nursery, the children are too busy playing and exploring to notice a visitor. In other nurseries, children might look tired or bored and the visitor is the most interesting thing happening to them. If most children are constantly engaged in teacher led activities (sitting on a floor while someone “teaches” them something), I am usually less impressed, although each nursery will have short sessions like this during the day. Just make sure this is not all they are doing. You can look at the quality of the materials and the variety of toys the children have access to. And again, high quality does not mean new or colourful or expensive, but rather materials that encourage creativity and exploration. Playdough, sand, water play are all great ways for children to get their hands dirty and explore.

Make sure you ask a lot of questions – how they settle in the children, what they do if a child does not make friends or does not talk, how often they take them to the garden, what do they do if a child is particularly ahead or behind their peers, how do they handle conflicts between the children? You can immediately tell if the Head is warm and loving and understands children or if they give dismissive or vague answers. I also observe the junior staff and see if they look stressed or annoyed and how the staff members interact with each other. Are they friendly and calm? Do they seem to enjoy working together?

Of course, many parents also care about preparation for entrance assessments at competitive private schools, so you may want to ask which schools children from a particularly nursery get into. Many of them even have lists with numbers, offering full transparency. That information does help, but you can also casually observe if you see any evidence of advanced drawing or writing by children while you are there. You will need to visit quite a few nurseries in order to be able to spot immediately how the children’s work seems to compare to other outstanding nurseries.

In addition to the school visit, make sure you read the inspection report and talk to current parents, if possible. And make sure you visit at least three or ideally five nurseries before making a choice, as the nurseries vary widely in style and quality.

If you visit schools, also read up on how to tell an outstanding school from a McPrep.

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 2015 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 2015 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 and tutoring for 11+ entrance exams), 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 School, for example, did not even make the top 50 according to the league tables), and there are many more outstanding and high performing 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 2015 league tables on the Telegraph Education website.

Just before the holidays, the Department of Education published the results of the 2015 KS2 SATS tests, which test Year 6 pupils (11 year olds) across England on their Maths, English and Writing skills. Here is the new ranking of London state primary schools based on their average point score in 2015: Ranking of London state primary schools 2015
Fox Primary in Notting Hill is again Number 1, closely followed by Barnes Primary School. But what is so special about these schools that sets them apart from many other outstanding state primary schools in the capital? It is very important to talk about what the league tables don’t tell you. Headteachers critical of the SATS tests have often remarked that the results reflect the socioeconomic profile of the pupils more than anything to do with teaching quality or leadership of a school. In large part, this is true, and certainly if you look at Fox and Barnes Primary, this is quite a plausible explanation.

But in addition, the even stronger factor is the influence of 11+ preparation that pupils undertake privately, either with tutors or their parents. The state primary schools you find on top of the league tables usually have a high share (>30%, some even >50%) of pupils who move on to private secondary schools and prepare for 11+ exams outside of school. In addition, you will also find high performing state primary schools in those areas where a high share of pupils apply for 11+ entry to grammar schools. There are very few grammar schools left in and around London, but you do find one for boys and one for girls in Kingston (Tiffin School) and a larger number of schools in the Southeast of London in Bromley / Bexley. Pupils aiming for these undergo extensive private 11+ preparation. There is, for example, a prep centre in Harrow that many 10 year old girls flock to for long hours on Saturdays in order to prepare for the entrance exams to the Henrietta Barnett School.

And last but not least, you will also find results reflect parental effort at least as much as the quality of teaching at any given school. Schools where many pupils come from cultures that value education and early learning highly also tend to top the league tables. Of course, this is not only true for state primary schools. Even when you look at private prep schools, it is never quite clear how much parents and private tutors have contributed to 11+ results. There is only so much a school can do for their children, if parents are not involved outside of school or during holidays.

​So where does that leave us? The tables give us a very good idea which schools attract families that aim for selective education at secondary level and that may have a high level of parental involvement. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a school in the top 50 is really any better for a given child than a school in the top 200 or 300. I would probably prefer a school that has an average point score of at least 30.0 and where a high percentage (>40% preferably) work at Level 5 or above in Maths or English, and ideally one that has an “Outstanding” Ofsted rating, but there are plenty of those in London that are not listed in the top 50.

Parents with children registered at Thomas’s Battersea have just received a letter that Ben Thomas, Headmaster at Thomas’s Battersea for the past 18 years, will step down from his post in July 2017, in order to become Chairman of the Group Board of Thomas’s London Day Schools and “to serve the wider world of education“. This announcement adds to the long list of changes currently taking place at London prep schools.

Elizabeth Hill recently stepped down from her post at Westminster Under School, while the search for a new Master is ongoing. Cameron House School in Chelsea is recruiting a new Head for September 2016. Wendy Challen recently stepped down as Head of Garden House Girls’ School, as did Lucy Watts of Eaton House Belgravia, who retired last summer. Two girls’ schools in Hampstead expect a change of leadership next September, though I will not name them until this is officially announced. These are only the few examples that immediately come to mind, evidently there will be more in the coming years. I could also add Nicholas Allen to the list, who started as new Head at Hill House in September 2015 and resigned again shortly after.

Headmasters very much make or break the success of a prep school, so it can be hard to plan years in advance if you do not know if the leadership at your chosen school will change or not. At the same time, some turnover is inevitable in London schools, and at least, with a new Head announced you can be fairly certain that they will stay for a reasonable amount of time, if all goes well. Watch this space for further announcements on staff changes in the coming months!