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Our View
This charming Notting Hill prep for boys and girls has a real global outlook, lots of space and a passionate head who’s focused on producing happy, confident learners – rather than setting children off on a pre-planned trajectory to a particular senior school. For parents looking for a properly nurturing atmosphere amid the sometimes high-pressured London prep school scene, Chepstow House will fit the bill – we saw care and kindness from the moment we walked through its arched entrance.
Where?
Located behind a residential street in the northern end of Notting Hill, just off Ladbroke Grove, Chepstow House has an enviable amount of space for its central London location. With the building’s long, thin footprint, the 350-strong school is centred around a seemingly endless corridor, with one end reserved for the younger pupils and the other end for older children. Everyone meets in the middle for lunch, with pupils from different years passing each other as they go about their business, bringing this community together in a rather unique way.
First of all, you’re struck by the three sizeable playgrounds (two Astro-turfed for netball and football). But there’s more, with every bit of outside space set up for a particular year so they have their own area – from Reception’s equipment-filled strip at the back of the site to the decked balcony with outdoor seating and a table-tennis table for Years 5 and 6. That feeling of space continues inside: the high ceilings, the large classrooms, the light – even a conservatory-esque extension for the linked nursery.
Staggered pick up and drop offs and a manned ‘kiss and go’ ease the traffic and the start and end of the day – but for many pupils, a stroll or scoot through Holland Park is the perfect way to bookend the day.
Head
Head Angela Barr is a force of nature who has been at the school since it was founded in 2010; previously she was head of the lower school at all-girls Pembridge Hall. Full of hugely sensible views, she’s the youngest of six, so knows a thing or two about responsibility and respect. She is clearly popular with her pupils, greeting them at the door in the mornings and taking assemblies (there were lots of greetings from children as she showed us around). Her passion for her school is palpable, as are her imagination and creativity – classes are named after birds: the robins and sparrows in the early years, with the larger and wiser owls and eagles at the upper end of the school.
She’s definitely got her finger on the pulse and an ear to the ground, with her office on the mezzanine floor giving her audio and visual access to most of the goings-on. Her regular stints on the lunch duty rota keep her visible and in touch with her little charges, for whom she strives to offer ‘a one stop shop from Nursery to Year 6 with no assessment’. But more expressively, the head describes Chepstow House as, ‘a fantastic, child-oriented school where family, community, education and happiness matter – we are a school which does what it says it will do with joy and humour’.
Admissions
It pays to register in the first few months after your baby is born, particularly if you're interested in a place in the gorgeous nursery headed by the smashing Gill Whiteside. And now, expectant parents can even get in on the act with a pre-registration tour of the school to really see for themselves what Chepstow House has to offer. But don’t hang about – it’s a popular place.
Chepstow House is proudly non-selective. Key points of entry are Nursery and Reception, but for occasional places higher up the school, children are invited to taster days to ensure it’s the right fit for everyone.
At 11+, pupils whizz off to a super array of London day schools, but others secure places at an impressive handful of boarding seniors. Take note: pupils aren’t prepared for either 7+ or 8+, so if you’ve got your eye on moving your child at this stage, we’d suggest looking elsewhere.
Academics and senior school destinations
Classes (which hover at around 20 pupils) are mixed up each year to help promote friendships across each year group, and classrooms are all flooded with light from large windows and adorned with pupil artwork. French is taught by specialists from Reception upwards, and maths is streamed from Year 2. Children are taught cursive handwriting and exercise books continue to feature heavily, but IT provision is excellent too, with pupils using school-provided iPads and Surface Pros from Reception before learning to be responsible for their own devices from Year 1. Cypher Coding is also part and parcel of the IT curriculum and ensures that children understand the technical working behind such things as drones and VR sets.
At the most recent inspection, Chepstow House was praised for consistently outstanding teaching across the board. Mrs Barr puts great emphasis on reading and comprehension, and children are encouraged to be word aware: the windows of Year 5’s classroom were adorned with their words of the day as a reminder to be brave with new vocabulary; and Year 3 upwards has guided reading, as well as a class reader and regular post-reading discussions so that no reluctant reader is left behind. The pupils’ overall reading ages testify to the success of that initiative (many Year 6 pupils have the reading age of a 17-year old, we are told), while libraries in every classroom and the ‘book swap shed’ on the way to the main entrance keep reading high on the agenda. Pupils use the local library as their own, which has helped keep it open to the community too. The ‘Big Write’ and 'Talk for Writing' sees pupils whipping up a weekly storm of creativity with their pieces of descriptive work based either on topics they have been studying, or drawn from any and every corner of their imaginations.
Impressive support is given to those with EAL, who are also taught any specialised terms they might need ahead of a particular topic. There’s a seven-strong SEND team, led by the highly experienced Sarah Egerton Warburton; she’s fervently anti-tutoring, and instead believes in early intervention and building pupils’ confidence up brick by brick. Gifted and talented pupils are equally well supported and helped to stretch themselves, particularly in the core subjects.
Chepstow is creating an impressive track record in 11+ success and children head off to (mainly co-ed) London day schools (including City of London Boys’ and Girls’, Godolphin & Latymer, Queen’s College, Francis Holland and Emanuel), and boarding seniors. The head is a big fan of Maida Vale School, just around the corner – despite only opening in 2020, Ms Barr already sees it as a senior destination to watch.
Co-curricular
Playgrounds are neatly laid out with dedicated netball and football areas (so those who would prefer quieter play with chalk and books can do so without fear of being knocked over by the more rambunctious), and there’s plenty of sporting options to pick from. Netball, football, rugby, hockey, gymnastics and cricket are taught to all, with children allowed to choose what they want to pursue in the summer of Year 3. Everyone joins in with sports lessons but there’s no obligation to play in matches if it’s not your cup of tea. There are occasional sports camp weekends, plus a week away during half term where pupils even get the chance to knock about in the Real Madrid stadium. And despite all the space, from Year 3 upwards pupils head offsite to full-size facilities at Paddington Rec, Westway, Linford Christie Outdoor Sports Centre or the Kensington Leisure Centre where the invitation-only swim squad also trains and hosts its galas.
Art is strong – pupils enter work for the Royal Academy’s Young Artists’ Summer Show competition each year (the department has its own Instagram account), an advanced art club meets before school and even Reception children are able to use the art room, where paper sculptures of ocean animals swim across the ceiling.Drama is taught by a specialist from Reception onwards; there’s LAMDA on the side for budding thespians and every pupil will have the opportunity to perform annually in a play or nativity.
Multicoloured ukuleles line one wall of the large, well kitted-out music room, home to a gleaming drum set and plenty of electronic keyboards. Almost 80 per cent of pupils learn an instrument which means juggling a whopping 236 peripatetic lesson every week; expect lots of performances in the centrally located lunch hall, where there’s a large mezzanine balcony for parents to sit and watch. Everyone comes together for a mood-boosting singing assembly once a week, accompanied by the chamber choir. And with a new staff member recently joining the department, there are now even more music groups and ensembles for pupils to join too.
There's a busy timetable of additionally charged extracurricular clubs ranging from Minecraft to martial arts and swim squad to school of pop via the recently introduced (and very popular) Care Club, where pupils can take home the school pets – the matchbox-size tortoise, the stick insects or the fish.
School community
There’s a lovely, down-to-earth school community here, full of families who appreciate the diverse, kind, and inclusive vibe and are keen to get involved in social events. Expect a cosmopolitan mix of international pupils too – many are bi- or even tri-lingual. British values and celebrating differences are emphasised through lessons on respecting others and the use of ‘language ambassadors’ – pupils who encourage their peers to be proud of their native tongue. We saw familial and thoughtful interactions everywhere on our visit, and it’s not just the staff who are tasked with the caring. Children look out for each other through buddy systems, buddy breaktimes and friendship fun days, and all classrooms operate a ‘zone of regulation’ where pupils can choose a colour-coded lollipop stick to help them recognise how they are feeling and be able to talk about it. Partnerships with ‘Empathy Lab’ – who provide reading books about empathy – and ‘Tooled Up’, which offers practical resources for parents, pupils and staff on anything from sleep troubles to anxiety, are the icing on the pastoral cake.
It feels like there is a really joyful purposefulness to the pupils here, whatever their age or stage, and whether they’re skipping along the corridor or happily playing out in the rain in their fluffy red fleeces at breaktime.
We’re also fans of the emphasis on charity: the children support schools in Ethiopia and Kenya, regularly donating books and clothes and getting to know it on a personal level – thereby really understanding exactly why they’re raising money and what it’s going to be spent on.
And finally....
Our pupil guides were unutterably enthusiastic about their school and keen to tell us about everything that they enjoyed at Chepstow House. There's substance to the organic growth of this school, which quite rightly is coming of age. It firmly deserves to be on parents' radars.