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Our View
The passion for educating children at this rural prep in West Sussex is inspirational. The friendly atmosphere, the beautiful environment, the happy pupils all add up to a school it’s hard not to fall in love with. A nurturing approach sees each child celebrated for who they are with the four Ardingly ‘us’ values – be adventurous, generous, ingenious and curious – weaved seamlessly into the curriculum to equip pupils with skills for now and for life. All-through to age 18, the school offers a seamless transition to Ardingly College; for the past two years, almost every pupil has calmly sailed into the senior school without missing a beat.
Where?
The school sits in the sleepy village of Ardingly off an unassuming country lane that gives no hint of the wow factor awaiting you when you pass through the gates. Sports fields stretch as far as the eye can see, with stately red-brick buildings overlooking the 240 acres and the uninterrupted West Sussex countryside beyond. The prep building sits around a quad with the college, while the pre-prep complex, The Farmhouse, is located 200 metres away on the site of a former working farm where all the original buildings have been refurbished. The Pig Sty houses Reception and the wellbeing room, Years 1 and 2 (and from September 2024, Year 3) are in the Cow Shed and the nursery is in the old farmhouse. The Pig Sty and Cow Shed each has its own playground with climbing frames and there is also an adventure playground nearby, as well as the pre-prep’s own little sports field.
The school is very accessible – less than 40 minutes by train from London, 12 minutes from Brighton and 10 minutes from Gatwick. The school runs a number of bus routes taking in Hove, Oxted, Lewes and Tunbridge Wells, among other places.
Head
New head Laura Lamont joined Ardingly Prep in September 2024 from her previous role as head of Queen’s College Preparatory School in London. Before Queen's College, Miss Lamont was deputy head at City of London Preparatory School for Girls – and we are very impressed with this natural leader's energy and focus.
Admissions
The school advises getting children in as early as possible – ‘Get in early and get a great start’. Assessment days become more formal higher up the years and include a meeting with the head.
Academics and senior school destinations
Learning is fun at Ardingly, especially when pupils go off timetable for Shaping My World Week, its values-driven initiative to encourage children to be adventurous, curious, generous and ingenious. Our most recent visit happened to coincide with the week, and there were falconry displays, small animals visiting the little ones' classrooms, circus training and a Year 4 visit to a local care home – with plans later in the week for a big school camp-out preceded by supper in school and a silent disco, with hot chocolate around the campfire before bed. The four ‘us’ values aren’t just a festival once a year though; weekly lessons centre around everything from manners, making a bed and loading a dishwasher to first aid, marketing and mortgages. Pupils also have weekly library lessons, curling up in circular seats inside bookshelves to get lost in a book.
There’s a lot of emphasis on reading and the school follows the Read Write Inc programme which has really helped children to progress. Specialist language teachers take pupils for French, Spanish, German, and in Years 5 and 6, Latin. Classrooms are light and spacious and each one has a universal toolbox containing headphones, weighted blankets, focus toys and writing slopes which children are invited to borrow.
There is an exam in Year 6 and, as previously noted, every single pupil for the past two years has been offered a place in the senior school; this year, the leavers won 80 per cent of all the scholarships awarded.
Co-curricular
This is a sporty school with an all-in ethos. Matches are weekly with four teams fielded so everyone plays. Sports festivals with other schools are frequent and the pupils have a real zest for cross-country – they’re good at it too, often bringing home national medals. Dance is popular; it’s part of the PE curriculum and every year the school holds a dance festival for all age groups. Swimming is also strong with competitive squads taken by a former Olympian in the on-site pool.
Each year group from Year 3 onwards puts on an annual production, with bigger shows such as Oliver and High School Musical staged by the after-school drama club (the prep school shares music and art facilities with the college). Pupils have weekly choir lessons and many play an instrument too. There is a whole-school orchestra with the senior school, as well as a fiddler group and jazz band.
Clubs change termly and include Lego, embroidery and sailing in the summer and the first half of the autumn terms. Forest school – which is timetabled up to Year 2 – becomes a club for older years, giving little ones magical afternoons in the school’s woods.
School community
The school’s pastoral care is excellent: every child is discussed in weekly meetings; there’s a dedicated wellbeing room with a matron on duty; and the school started teaching wellbeing and mindfulness more than a decade ago. Deputy head Suzanne Pendlebury-Bowe tells us you’ve ‘got to have this in line with the academics as it is like a jigsaw and it has to fit well together’. Pupils sit in form groups with their teachers for lunch in the panelled dining room, giving them a chance to get to know them better and ask them questions that they might not have had the confidence to ask in class. Parents are invited to the weekly celebration assemblies with a coffee morning held afterwards that is attended by the head.
And finally....
This lovely all-through prep really takes care of the pastoral side of things, which means everything else falls into place. It’s a school where it genuinely feels like everyone belongs; no one is changing to fit in. We love that the ‘bring your pet to school’ day has seen ponies and chickens come along, as well as hamsters, cats and dogs – just another example of the ‘everyone’s invited’ attitude.