Edgbaston High Preparatory School

We were floored by the pace, variety of life and buzzing sense of activity at this aspirational and inspirational multicultural all-girls day school in leafy Edgbaston, just to the south of central Birmingham. Girls zip in all directions across the compact campus, out along the 10-minute walk to the sports fields and move seamlessly up to the senior school. It’s an academically ambitious place where standards are achieved by nurture, care and attention.

The school is located among pristine residential streets in the suburbs of Edgbaston. The school’s 14-acre campus is long, narrow and full, meaning the space is used very efficiently. The prep building is nestled behind the senior school and is housed over three floors, with Years 1 and 2 on the lower ground, giving them easy access to the playground; Years 5 and 6 on the ground floor; and Years 3 and 4 on the first floor. Westbourne, the pre-prep, has its own lovely, purpose-built space with specialist play areas, ICT facilities and an outdoor classroom. The head’s new signage for the prep has ensured that it can be more easily found by visitors and that it shines out more distinctly as a superb school in its own right.

Edgbaston High School (EHS) is easily accessible along main roads from the M5, and public transport options are outstanding, with good rail and bus links. There is also a big school bus from Sutton Coldfield and four minibus routes across the city. A joint school bus with all-boys West House Prep is great for siblings.

Nina Hobson took over as head in September 2024, arriving from her previous role as head of prep and pre-prep at RGS Dodderhill. She is relaxed and amiable with an enviable blend of maternal warmth and capability, a steely eye for detail and a clear vision of exactly how she wants things to be done. By her own admission she’s a questioner, always asking ‘why are we doing this’ and ‘how could we make it even better’, all with a view to igniting the passions and ideas of her excellent staff and continuing to drive the school forward. 

She is keen to address the myth that in order to achieve academic excellence, you need a very formal teaching environment. Instead, Edgbaston High Preparatory School is a very nurturing place where ‘we can stretch and challenge our girls and bring out their individual brilliance’. Her curious nature has brought about the overhaul of the data and assessment systems meaning that they are more able to evidence everything they do with data and reassure families (many of whom sacrifice a great deal to send their children here) that they are getting the very best out of their girls, tracking their individual progress as well as making comparisons against a national average. 

Mrs Hobson has very high standards and expectations of everyone in the school community - for example, she wants pupils to be proud of looking smart in their uniform, she wants parents to get pupils to school on time every day and she wants teachers to be always asking, how could I teach that better? What could I do differently? ‘But it has to be fun as well,’ she adds. She leads by example, welcoming pupils at the school gate every morning and making herself available to chat with parents, showing pupils first hand ‘the importance of how you speak to people and how you conduct yourself in school. I genuinely care about every pupil in the school, and I hope they know that,’ she adds sincerely. ‘It transforms your educational journey if you feel that your teachers care, that they notice you and that you matter.’

Life at Edgbaston High begins at Westbourne. Many girls start here at age two and stay on all the way through to the sixth form, but others arrive from a broad range of other pre-preps, which really helps to fuel the diverse, energetic and enthusiastic feeling that permeated the school throughout our visit.

Thankfully, you don’t need to be queueing up before your child is born to register. That said, it’s a good idea to get in fairly early as places can fill up quickly – particularly as it’s the only all-girls option in the area. As a selective school, all applicants are invited to an assessment day, which gets more academic as girls move up the school (there is equal value placed on both written assessments and teacher evaluation to help the school suss out potential). Pupils will undertake verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests but staff will also assess a child’s innate ability in order to get a more rounded picture. Prep admissions aren’t about pass or fail but more about the fit and making sure that pupils won’t be overly stressed by the academic rigour, and that they will be able to make the most of all the opportunities on offer here.

With a curriculum designed to support and develop talent, and a focus on fostering a genuine joy in learning, EHS excels in balancing academic necessities with each pupil’s individual passions and needs. Everywhere here feels busy and productive, from the classrooms and the dance studios to the swimming pool. Everyone we spoke to, including our brilliant guides, talked about the enormous variety of options available to pupils.

More specialist teaching is introduced as the girls move up the school, gently getting them used to having multiple teachers. Science is particularly well served – from Year 4, pupils have a specialist teacher teaching them in a fully equipped laboratory.

There is a dedicated prep school library as well as libraries for each year group, and a bookshop housed in a series of units. The school has bought all the books, which the girls buy using their established accounts (so they do a bit of maths too by working out the balance). Computing is woven into the curriculum, with two specialist IT suites for Years 1 to 2 and 3 to 6 and, much to the delight of the pupils, a recent robotics spending spree has resulted in a new haul of coding equipment and some very fancy Sphero robots. Languages include French, Latin, Spanish and German, and there is a dedicated language room used by all.

Regular assessments mean pupils get used to being tested in preparation for senior school. It’s another way that EHS really builds its girls’ confidence. We also love the academic challenges that are always on the go – the learning surrounding World Chocolate Day sounded particularly enticing.

Around half of the girls continue to the senior school, where they are joined by a sizeable incoming cohort higher up. The other half head off to local grammar schools, something which makes Edgbaston rather special in fully preparing its pupils for both 11+ and the all-though route.

There’s a fabulous range of competitive sports on offer, with teams in netball, tennis, rounders, swimming, athletics, cross-country and gymnastics (fixtures are generally on Saturdays or after school). Swimming is particularly popular, helped by the on-site pool and lessons are now offered right the way from kindergarten and nursery (the school swim squad made it into the national finals of the English Schools Swimming Association recently). Netball is also gaining in popularity, a trend which has led the school to set up a netball development squad in addition to the regular teams. The weekly clubs are well attended with sports related visits and residentials often par for the course whilst yoga classes see younger pupils doing ‘stories with poses’ and older ones practising ‘nature’ poses.

Music is popular and thriving – there are three choirs, an orchestra and numerous ensembles such as wind, string, brass, recorder and guitar. Junior girls play their part in school concerts and festivals and are given a wealth of performing opportunities including assemblies and, in their final year, an annual production involving staff from the school's music department. A huge new art room overlooks the senior school so the girls can see the older pupils and feel a sense of inclusion.

There is a good range of clubs, covering everything from fencing and karate to mindfulness, coding, basketball and Lego, as well as a few more academic options – Mandarin, thinking skills, French, history and classics. Gardening club is tremendously popular, boosted by the PTA enhanced allotment which comes complete with raised beds, shed and apple orchard, leaving visitors to wonder if they have opened a magical gateway into the middle of Devon.

There is an admirable emphasis on charity, with weekly donation drives alongside loads of specific fundraising events, from a ‘Pink Day’ for Breast Cancer Care to a readathon for sick and disabled children. 

On her first visit, Mrs Hobson was delighted and surprised to find that EHS ‘is unexpectedly all greenery and trees’- great news for an accredited Forest School Leader and a fan of the great outdoors. She has plans to get everybody outside more, as well as introducing some free flow additions to the curriculum for the younger ones. 

Staff talk to the girls a lot about making a difference, recognising what they’re good at and reflecting on what they can do to get better. There’s a real ethos of discussion and sharing, which is evident when you visit. The sense of community is strong. Recently there was a diversity day based around Sunflower Sisters, a book by a parent about skin colour. Each year group had their own sunflower in the hall, with each child assigned a petal to write something about themselves. It’s a lovely example of positive affirmation and the noticeably happy, confident and engaged pupils are testament to the excellent pastoral care here. ‘All-girls schooling isn’t all about ballet and drawing - it’s exactly the same as co-ed but without boys stealing all the leadership roles, ‘says the head with a smile. Essentially, it’s not about boys or girls, it’s about creating the best environment to help pupils become ‘well rounded individuals.’

We were really impressed by EHS – the campus is (quite literally, in some of the tighter corridors) a hive of activity and there’s a smorgasbord of opportunities, with excellent links between the junior and senior schools and a near-seamless transition between the two. ‘Through nurture and care, we give the girls wings to achieve anything they want to,’ says the head.