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Our view
There’s a warm family feel and a real sense of nurture at this non-selective gem of a co-ed prep on the edge of Ashdown Forest in Sussex. The school motto – ‘Aim High, Be Kind and Dare to be Different’ – is a clarion call to children to embrace their unique self, and each and every pupil is supported to do so every step of the way. Inspirational head Fergus Llewellyn leads a passionate team of teachers who have to be among the most enthusiastic educators we have ever met. And pupils match their passion and gumption, leaving for top senior schools with a zest for life running through their veins.
Where?
Arriving at Cumnor feels like stumbling across a delicious secret. Tucked away off a country lane outside the village of Danehill, near Haywards Heath, it sits on an idyllic 60-acre smallholding on the fringes of Ashdown Forest. The school moved here from its original site in Croydon 80 years ago, and while the main house may not be a history-stoked beauty, it has grown organically ever since and is wonderfully fit for purpose.
Terrific add-ons include the Peake, with its pink, lime-green and turquoise science laboratories and DT classrooms, and the nursery, which regularly gets voted in the top 20 nurseries in the south east. The dining room, aka the Bistro, is a bright modern space that is more café than refectory and also serves as a space where parents can pop in for coffee, croissants and a chat with the head after drop-off. There’s heaps of space, pitches galore, a bluebell wood, rope swings and even a lake for launching rafts.
Head
The charismatic Fergus Llewellyn has a breadth of experience – from St Andrew’s Prep in Kenya to Cheltenham College, King’s Bruton and Haslemere Prep – and a depth of caring that makes him a very special head. Passionate about enabling pupils to discover their talents and fly, he personally writes a letter to each of them at the end of the year highlighting what makes them special. Called the ‘I am and I can’ letters, he tells us: ‘These letters highlight what are the “I cans” and what are the special bits about each child, so that when life gets hard, wherever they may be, they can be reminded of why they are unique.’
Staff who go the extra mile, small class sizes and lots of opportunities to try new things are the foundation stones of the Cumnor education, and as well as appointing new heads of art, drama, music and sport – all of whom have injected fresh verve and vision into their department – he’s revamped the appraisal process to celebrate excellence more broadly and fine-tuned the preparation for senior school applications.
Married to Tamsyn (whom he describes as the school’s ‘social glue’), his two youngest children are pupils here, with the eldest at Eastbourne College. Exuberant and hugely energetic, the Llewellyns personally conduct school tours, ensuring that prospective parents see what a close-knit community they will be joining.
Admissions
With plenty of relocating families putting Cumnor on their list, children are welcomed into all year groups here. Those with their eye on a place in the main intake years (4+, 8+ and 11+) are encouraged to register at least two years in advance. All children from nursery upwards attend a taster day, during which an informal assessment will take place and previous school reports requested where appropriate. Cumnor is on the lookout for those who would make a positive contribution to the school – so a good reference goes a long way.
Cumnor’s award-winning nursery was proving so popular that the school opened The Hive, which takes children who are rising two. Superb wraparound care, Early Years funding and competitive pricing all add to the appeal, so it pays to register as early as possible. There’s no need to commit to staying on and moving up the school, but with places in such high demand, those planning to do so are given priority (around half leap straight on to the pre-prep).
The school’s own fully-funded bursary initiative, The Cumnor Foundation, works with 16 senior schools that commit to providing 100 per cent bursary places for two pupils every academic year. Aimed at bright local primary pupils, children join Cumnor in Year 4, and are appointed a mentor to help them and their family navigate life at Cumnor. It’s a brilliant initiative, and the proof is in the pudding: the scheme’s first recipient left with a fully-assisted place and an academic scholarship to Hurst.
Academics and senior school destinations
The pre-prep – set right in the heart of the school and run by the delightful Mrs Freeman – lays strong pastoral and academic foundations for the pupils interwoven with fun initiatives like Wake & Shake (a joyous and quick aerobic routine to uplifting music in the playground). Mrs Freeman is passionate about understanding what makes each pupil tick and helping them recognise their tick, as well as others’, both socially and emotionally: ‘I want Cumnor children to be prepared for life’, she tells us. Year 3 is a gentle transition from the separate pre-prep to the main school but where the pupils keep a form tutor.
Cumnor is passionate about the broader curriculum, so there’s masses of music, art, languages and drama for all throughout their time here. Mr Llewellyn has pinpointed Year 6 as pupils’ most academic moment and having looked closely at the curriculum, has started bespoke lessons in verbal and non-verbal reasoning in Year 5, as well as problem-solving and multiple-choice English and maths classes. He wants to instil pupils with as much familiarity and confidence as possible before they sit their senior school entrance exams. He’s also overhauled the Year 7 and 8 curriculum, introducing some non-exam-based assessments such as debating and an extended essay, more choice pre-GCSE (pupils can now take computer science and Ancient Greek) – and a three-term life skills foundation entrepreneurship course where pupils build a business from scratch and then sell their wares locally.
The refurbished prep library is now even more of a quiet place for children to come during break and play time if they want to get away from the hustle and bustle of school life. As you’d expect from a non-selective school, a number of pupils have additional learning needs – a brilliant Learning Enhancement Department is on hand to help with one-to-one breakout sessions or group work in the classroom and there is a robust system in place for early years pupils who need extra speech and language support.
Compulsory Saturday school is a thing of the past; instead, there’s a timetable of fun activities and academic clinics – with the term made very slightly longer to make up for it all.
Parents are increasingly opting for great local senior schools like Hurst, Brighton College, Ardingly and Eastbourne, but the school’s strength is the range of destinations it feeds to, which is wide – many pupils move on to King’s Canterbury, Benenden, Eton and Marlborough and Wellington. This year has seen record results, with all pupils who applied to Brighton College, Tonbridge and Eton receiving places.
Co-curricular
There’s plenty of sport for all. Matches take place on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, with the occasional Saturday morning fixture thrown in, and all the usual major sports are on offer, including athletics, swimming in the school’s own outdoor pool and football. It’s all delightfully co-educational too: Cumnor was the pioneer of girls’ cricket matches on the Sussex prep-school circuit. In recent years, the calibre of coaching has skyrocketed to match the top-notch sports hall, courts and new Astroturf – and of course the legendary match teas. Watch this space for the school’s plans to expand its offering to include gymnastics and bouldering.
There’s a hugely impressive STEM building, where pupils are taught a range of skills including electronics, CAD and laser cutting. Each year is assigned a project: the Year 4s focus on operating machines and materials safely and confidently; Year 5s do electronics and the invisible art of Japanese mending; and in Year 6, pupils strip and rebuild a go-cart, which they get to drive on the school tennis courts. The two senior years get involved in everything from molten metal pewter casting and jewellery making to building spaghetti bridges.
All children have a timetabled weekly lesson of art, and the new head of art has introduced sketchbook work culture with prizes awarded termly for the best one. She aims to ‘raise the bar’ in the art department by ‘not underestimating what young children can do’, she tells us.
The performing arts are huge, and the new head of drama, Charlie Harris, a former actor, is one of the most inspirational drama teachers we’ve met. She is passionate about instilling in pupils a life-long love for the arts and has ramped up the performances across the school. The Year 7s recently staged School of Rock – part of the preparations included a workshop with a couple of actors from the West End show. Year 8s are rehearsing for a summer evening Shakespeare play in the outdoor theatre where the younger ones will come in PJs and snuggle up in sleeping bags. ‘We have a duty as teachers to create memories,’ Ms Harris says.
An on-site ballet studio is every dancer’s dream and from September 2024, dance will be timetabled, while music lessons take place in a 17th century barn. The new head of music has introduced more music making and inclusivity, with world music, singing and ukulele, as well as a community music day at Arundel Cathedral. There are four choirs – junior, middle, senior and chamber – and 80 per cent of Year 3 and 4 play a musical instrument.
Each afternoon, there’s an hour set aside for clubs (or ‘occupations’, as they’re known here), with everything from Cumnor Crime Scene to rocket launching on offer.
Boarding
Pupils in the top years can opt to weekly or flexi board – and numbers soar in the summer term, when there’s ample opportunity to run riot in the grounds and enjoy extra evening activities and barbecues. Dorms are reassuringly scruffy (girls get full marks for their homely decorations) but come with seriously special views over the South Downs. The remodernised common room gets a big thumbs-up.
School community
‘Chapter’ – Cumnor’s dynamic and energetic wellbeing programme – seamlessly brings together a fully comprehensive pastoral safety net for every pupil. Children’s ability to self-disclose, to trust themselves, to trust others and their appetite for seeking change in different situations is carefully tracked and assessed so that staff can fully understand how each child is feeling and the environments in which they will thrive best.
The Chapter also draws on leading wellbeing experts, either as needs arise or as regular contributors to the weekly newsletter – which educates parents about everything from communication techniques to popular Tik-Tokers who can potentially undo children’s perceptions of values and appropriate language with two clicks of a mouse. Deputy head pastoral, Mike Matthews leads the initiative and is an impressively knowledgeable and articulate man with experience in spades. Understanding that children need consistency is paramount and Cumnor is educating and empowering parents to set boundaries which they may otherwise feel uncomfortable to do. Future plans even include a democratically-constructed, age-specific parents' charter, which would set out helpful and peer agreed expectations for parties, sleepovers, homework, gaming and social media to ensure that parents don’t have to feel that they are ’the only ones’ who want to lay down a few ground rules. A new pastoral hub, a sensory space for anxious pupils to go to during the school day, is also in the pipeline.
We came away from our chat with Mike absolutely sure that this is the way forward for every school. The pandemic has changed the way that children feel about the world; separation anxiety has spiked and even the youngest pupils need more reassurance, but models of care need to be replicated at home and at school for them to have the greatest impact. Cumnor’s inclusive and consultative approach as well as the very likeable and genuine Mr Matthews will have parents jumping on board with gusto and relief.
There is a tremendous sense of community here. Families are a mix of local Sussex and London escapees from pre-preps and preps, on the whole living within a 20-mile radius of the school. All are welcome to pop into the onsite Bistro for a coffee after morning drop-off – and there’s always a member of the SLT around to chat to parents if needed. Parents can even take part in a Pilates class or have a swim or play tennis. There are also parent reps and termly meetings with the SLT and head of year.
And finally....
Packed with happy, charismatic children, this prep has all the bases covered when it comes to providing a top-notch, non-selective education where everyone – and everyone’s talents – are celebrated. In the words of one parent, ‘Cumnor sees every child and finds the right pace for each individual, getting the best out of them.’ You couldn’t ask for more.