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For curious minds who may not be thriving in the mainstream prep world, Bruern Abbey is heaven-sent. Exclusively for neurodiverse boys
and those with learning difficulties (mainly dyslexia and dyspraxia), it’s endearingly thought of as ‘a bit of a carwash’. Boys come in a little bit less than shiny, Bruern takes a good look, sorts them out, restarts the engine and they emerge revitalised and ready to move on. We love everything about it: the eccentricity; the jokes, japes and mischievous joy around the lunch table; the organised chaos; the outdoorsiness – and the fact that every single boy here seems to be having an absolute blast.
Where is Bruern Abbey Prep School?
About five minutes from chichi shopping destination Bicester Village, in the tiny Oxfordshire village of Chesterton. Set in a spectacularly palatial late-19th-century pile, the main house was originally built as a hunting lodge, and dorms sit in what used to be very grand bedrooms with a few chandeliers still intact.
The school really feels like a home, with masses of wood panelling, dozens of open fires (38!), stacks of Country Life and a distinct lack of signage and school paraphernalia (bar the endless piles of muddy rugby boots).
Outside, classrooms and the chapel sit in outhouses and converted stables. The art room is in the old potting shed, woodwork classes are held in a log cabin by the tennis courts and boys have 30 glorious acres to run wild in. And despite the blockbuster setting, forget any illusions of grandeur – this is a delightfully scruffy place in the best possible way.
There’s a high proportion of day boys here, but for those coming from further afield, the M40 is a stone’s throw away, trains zip from Oxford and there’s a direct link to Marylebone from Bicester Village. London parents benefit from a pick-up in the city on Monday mornings, returning their boys home to the capital on Friday night.
Headmaster at Bruern Abbey
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect head for Bruern Abbey than John Floyd. Empathetic, practical and revered by parents, Mr Floyd was the school’s youngest-ever head when he took over the reins at just 29. Many years later, he is still every bit as passionate and perhaps even more brilliant at what he does. An easygoing, bright, genuine and likeable man with an infectious sense of humour, he is well known by parents for his ability to focus his energies on the things that really matter. He is dyslexic himself (as are a number of teachers, while his deputy head has dyscalculia) and consequently understands the struggles of many of his pupils very well.
Full of enthusiasm, this father of four boys is brilliantly open and straightforward, and chats to his pupils in a semi-big-brother way (he tells us the filing cabinets in his office are stashed full of Dairy Milk and Fruit Pastilles for his small charges). He is unequivocal about his aspirations for boys at Bruern: ‘We want them to be happy first and foremost, by quite a long chalk – and to be able to do their IQ justice and meet their potential.’
Admissions at Bruern Abbey
Bruern Abbey Prep may have a narrow remit, but it’s packed to the rafters and more popular than ever (they’ve been busy building more dorms to keep up with demand). Families come from every county from Cornwall to Norfolk, and it’s a first-come, first-served list - the 153 current pupils arrived from no less than 115 schools.
Boys join at different ages – often because parents have pulled them out of their current school – but there are typically around 120 enquiries for the 40 places up for grabs in each year group. They’ll always try and hold a few places back, so if the right candidate comes along, Bruern can swoop to the rescue. With the recent opening of
Bruern Abbey Senior School, parents of older prep children now have the assurance of staying in the Bruern nest until GCSE, and new pupils are now accepted into Year 8 if there’s a space.
Parents pop in for a tour and chat with Mr Floyd, and then there are a few ‘light touch’ activities for the boys (mainly to grasp what they can and can’t do), before an overnight trial stay for boarders – usually planned for a Wednesday night to coincide with barbecue and tuck day. Picking the right boys is a delicate balancing act; there are always some who don’t need quite the level of help that Bruern Abbey offers, while for boys with wider
special-education needs and disabilities, they don’t want to ‘overpromise and underdeliver’ and need to be certain that their needs aren’t ‘greater than Bruern can support’.
Academics and senior school destinations
For parents with unhappy boys, Bruern Abbey is the proverbial knight in shining armour. Pupils are given focused help and specialist teaching, learn how to ace
Common Entrance and then get popped back into the mainstream public-school system either at 13+ or following GCSEs at the new senior school. So what’s the secret? Short, punchy lessons to keep boys engaged; teeny class sizes, with two proper
dyslexia-qualified teachers in each; and no homework – ‘more lessons are much more worthwhile,’ says Mr Floyd. Once the day’s academic lessons are done, boys are free to roam, garden, cook, chuck a ball around or ride a bike (there are minimal screens or electronics as the school believes that these distractions don’t help boys with communication). Instead it’s all about good food, relaxation and having fun with your friends.
Younger pupils in Years 4 to 6 follow a skills-based curriculum where the focus is on ‘how to learn’, as well as catching up on areas where they may have fallen behind. Boys take the national curriculum but have double the English and maths provision of a mainstream school – eleven and eight lessons per week respectively. Teacher to pupil ratios are 1:5 in the lower school and 1:10 in Years 7 and 8, and every child reads with a teacher on a daily basis.
Every pupil has a laptop to use in class (most can type at four times the speed they can write, and laptops help with spelling and spacing so that boys can put their focus on the content of the lesson instead), and there’s heaps of visual learning: games of Battleships in maths to help teach coordinates, for example. Boys meet with their tutors every morning, and communication between staff members is close and focused – small numbers make it quick to spot if ‘something is brewing’. There’s plenty of extension work for bright sparks who need more challenge.
CE exams are sat in the local community centre, and Bruern thoughtfully arranges residentials and activities for every other year group during that week to ensure that the school is calm and quiet. Once boys’ confidence has been built back up, they head off to top senior schools (
Bradfield College,
Charterhouse,
Bryanston and
Stowe all made the list last year) totally transformed – and sometimes even with scholarships in tow. About half of the year group, particularly
those who joined the prep school later, head on to the new senior school (about 20 minutes away from the prep).
Bruern Abbey's SEND provision
With an eminently kind environment, this school is set up to offer maximum support for those with significant learning difficulties in speech, language, literacy and numeracy. A very small proportion of pupils have education, health and care plans. The supportive style of teaching is great for the majority – and we’ve heard from many parents who tell us just what a transformative experience it has been for their boys – but might not suit those with significant occupational-therapy needs or who aren’t aiming for a mainstream senior.
In addition to everyday classes, the school also offers speech and language therapy in 30-minute chunks for students who may require a little more help than others.
Three staff are trained in Drawing and Talking therapy, the school counsellor comes in for two days a week and there are weekly CBT sessions which are referred to here as ‘positive thinking’. There are outdoor ‘hobbit huts’ for counselling sessions, and boys always have access to a quiet room if they need to duck out of lessons to decompress. But Bruern aims to keep boys in the classroom together as much as possible, as being extracted for extra sessions is often what has made them feel different at their previous schools.
Co-curricular at Bruern Abbey Prep
‘We don’t claim to be a great sporting or epic music school,’ says Mr Floyd, ‘but a big part of Bruern is all the fun stuff’ – and he’s right. It might lack showcase playing fields, splashy sports facilities and match-winning prowess, but they still manage to cram in as much sport as possible. Favourites include rugby, football, athletics and cricket (there are lots of games against Moulsford, Abingdon Prep and Cothill), and pupils show boundless enthusiasm and sportsmanship while doing so.
The old chapel has been converted into a fabulous theatre, where boys can get stuck into both on-stage and behind-the-scenes roles.
At breaktime, boys run off into the grounds to make dens, ride bikes down the hill, tend to the chicken army and return covered in mud (sometimes with crayfish plucked from the stream for the chef). There’s a whole raft of quirky extras: judo, clay-pigeon shooting, gardening, cookery, partridge plucking and – our favourite – the gourmet Oyster Club, where pupils are encouraged to try new foods such as bouillabaisse and gravadlax. The food here is stellar – spiced parsnip soup and rabbit have both featured on previous menus. This is certainly a school that understands the link between nutrition and focus, and making mealtimes a gastronomic pleasure is a great way to teach the softer social skills that come with it. Tons of trips too, such as cricket tours to Sri Lanka, choir jaunts to the Loire Valley, and skiing in Norway.
Boarding at Bruern Prep
For many Bruern boys, boarding may not have been part of the original plan, but it’s very flexi (they can stay from one to four nights per week), and there are plenty of opportunities for parents to pop in and see their sons or join one of the twice-weekly candlelit dinners (totally hilarious, totally wonderful – serving wine to parents is a big privilege for the boys). There’s no Saturday school, so everyone heads home on weekends for all-important family time (lots hop on the London bus, which picks pupils up from Sloane Square on a Monday morning and drops them off again on Friday evening). Boys bundle up together in big dorms (with between four to eight beds each) in the main house, and Wednesday night is movie night, replaced by barbecues in the summer term – come rain or shine.
Bruern Abbey's school community
When most boys arrive at Bruern, their self-esteem has taken a bashing – and the school does an amazing job of building it back up. ‘Pastoral care is totally out of this world,’ emails a mother, and there’s non-stop emotional support, two school counsellors on hand, caring matrons ready to give cuddles to the homesick and no such thing as bad marks – boys are constantly rewarded for good work, manners and behaviour. And the lovely homely environment is certainly helped along by the presence of an entire fleet of dogs and free-range animals roaming the grounds. Staff are universally kind and down to earth, and all come armed with the most brilliant stories that so perfectly frame the Bruern picture – bumps in the road are an inevitable part of the journey, so why not make them fun-filled anecdotes that bring you together?
Pupils are delightfully open and honest; plenty have been through a lot to get here, and it’s not uncommon for parents to break down in tears in Mr Floyd’s office. As they’re all in the same boat, they bond quickly and easily – and all equally value their sons’ education.
And finally...
An extraordinary, incredibly refreshing school, true to its mission in every single way. The boys were some of the most unselfconscious, cheery and engaging we’ve met anywhere – a product of Bruern’s focus on fresh air, muddy boots, good manners and building confidence. Attention to detail is phenomenal, right down to the uniform Chelsea boots that can handle even the most taxing playtimes and crucially doesn’t require laces. We can’t imagine a better place to send a dyslexic son – and with the senior school now up and running, parents of older children can breathe a sigh of relief.