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Our View
There’s a real buzz at this all-boys’ Surrey prep that consistently delivers punchy academics coupled with a rich co-curricular offering and strong moral values. The school has been educating boys since 1865 and remains in the vanguard of education as one of the country’s oldest boys’ prep schools. The latest big news is that the pre-prep in Esher will be joining the site in September 2025, making the age four to 13 journey on offer even more compelling. Award-winning head Joanna Hubbard tells us, ‘We are a school that is really driving forward at the moment.’
Where?
The school occupies a five acre site on a well laid-out campus in leafy Surbiton, with an additional seven acre sports ground down the road. The A3 is minutes away but you wouldn’t know it; the school feels like its own world. A handsome arts and crafts manor house is the centre point, with extensions to accommodate classrooms, the art room, the D&T room, three science labs and a dining hall that doubles up as a performance space. There is also a full-size sports hall and a heated 20-metre swimming pool with retractable roof. In the school grounds, pupils have an adventure playground and a newly-laid 4G RFU certified pitch to play on.
There is plenty of room to accommodate the pre-prep, so new builds are not in the pipeline. Instead the current space will be reconfigured with the pre-prep having their own classrooms and play area.
More than half of the boys take the school minibus which has pick-up and drop-off points in Fulham, Barnes, Putney and Wimbledon, as well as Weybridge, Esher, Kingston and New Malden. For local families there is a one-way drop off system that keeps cars moving, which has contributed to the school receiving a Gold TFL Award.
Head
Mrs Hubbard joined the Shrewsbury House Trust, which also includes the co-ed pre-preps The Rowans School in Wimbledon and soon-to-be inclusive and all-boys’ Shrewsbury House Pre-Prep, in 2017 and took up the executive headship in 2021. ‘It was already fabulous,’ she says, so her approach has been to be ‘a lot more forward-thinking’, focusing on what boys need next, at senior school and in the wider world. ‘There is something special about this age group… transformation is profound here; it is a time for making memories and developing independent, curious and passionate learners to succeed in a changing world.’ The needs of the individual are nurtured to ensure all the children feel comfortable. At break times, boys can play football or table tennis, explore the adventure playground or find a good book to read in the library. Mrs Hubbard wants each pupil to ‘feel recognised, valued and celebrated for who they are’. The result is boys who will take risks and learn strategies to overcome any challenges.
Admissions
The school is selective and boys sit the 7+ in English, maths, reasoning and listening in the November of Year 2 for entry into Year 3. Prospective pupils take the tests at the school and also do a non-assessed music/art and sport activity. This gives the school a chance to see if, in Mrs Hubbard’s words, they are ‘teachable’ and ‘want to learn’.
Academics and senior school destinations
Shrewsbury House achieves stellar results: ‘Academics are in place for when they move on to secondary school,’ says Mrs Hubbard. All the classrooms have smart boards and projectors, and the school provides individual digital devices (Chromebooks, iPads, laptops) to support a hybrid learning approach – boys use workbooks alongside Google Classroom for resources.
There’s a lot of emphasis on reading, with an accelerated reading system in place. Pupils are avid readers – last year, 80 per cent of Year 8s left with a reading age of 17+ – and record their books on a digital system, taking an online quiz designed to develop their comprehension skills and provide further book recommendations for them. English teachers guide the boys to read a broad variety of books and the librarian also helps them expand their reading with changing displays much like a bookshop – on our visit it was science week and the table outside the library was full of interesting science-related books. The library is a real focal point. It’s open every breaktime and has 9,000 books as well as magazines to get engrossed in, plus new beanbag armchairs to curl up in. In the younger years, library lessons are timetabled while the older boys go there for some of their English lessons. A ‘book of the month’ piques interest, as do visits from authors. Additionally, there are regular ‘millionaire’s tea parties’ held with the head to celebrate pupils who’ve read a million words.
Children start Year 3 with a form teacher for half their lessons, but from Year 4, they have specialist teachers for all subjects and go to dedicated classrooms. Streaming in maths and English starts in Year 4. In Year 6, they are set for French too. In Years 7 and 8, there is an academic scholarship set, preparing the boys for academic awards to a wide variety of top secondary schools. All boys in Year 8 can also compete for music, drama, art, D&T, innovation and sports scholarships if they show prowess in these areas of the curriculum.
Boys in Years 7 and 8 can also study Greek as an extra-curricular option. From Year 3, pupils have specialist science teachers and from Year 7, the boys focus on chemistry, physics and biology in preparation for their Common Entrance and scholarship exams. The science labs are first-rate, fully equipped to the level you’d find at a secondary school. Many of the boys love the history room which has model aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling, a locked display cabinet with an old gun, battle dress and life-size cardboard cut-outs of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
The provision for gifted and able pupils has recently been boosted with some 163 boys in the programme, 56 of whom are gunning for scholarships. Accelerated learning schemes include the Advanced Developed Mathematical Programme which will see the seven pupils taking part in it (five Year 8s and two Year 7s) and aiming to sit IGCSE maths in the summer. French language GCSE can also be taken early. Boys in Year 3 upwards can try out for a place in Maths Fours – an innovative sports approach that puts boys into teams of four with their own kit and sets them against other schools, both in teams and individually. The school hopes to host a national prep school Fours competition. They also enter lots of English competitions too – last year 16 boys were highly commended in the Wimbledon Book Fest.
The aim-high approach is balanced with a careful eye on the boys’ wellbeing, with seniors filling out questionnaires after tests to assess how they found them.
Leavers go on to an impressive list of top senior schools, including St Paul’s, Eton and Radley. Around half go to boarding schools.
Co-curricular
The brand-new, on-site all-weather pitch is used for football, rugby and cricket, and children have weekly PE lessons alongside scheduled swimming lessons in the on-site pool. In Year 7 and Year 8, boys rotate swimming and PE each half-term.
The sports hall is amazing, offering gymnastics, badminton, basketball, indoor football and tennis, circuit training… but the cricket facilities are perhaps the most impressive. There are four cricket nets, a bowling machine, video analysis and ‘daylight technology’ lighting which helps the boys when they’re facing fast balls.
A large playing field next to Chessington World of Adventures is a short minibus ride away. This is where the boys play their fixtures – each year group has matches on different days of the week, with the older years having some Saturday fixtures too. There’s a lovely wildflower area here and a sports pavilion with solar panels. The school has just won a Green Flag Award and an eco-committee, which includes pupils in all year groups, is focused on improving sustainability.
Shrewsbury House is very musical with around 200 boys learning an instrument aided by 17 peripatetic teachers. They’re a talented bunch; the top choir of elite voices from Years 5 to 8 sang at Westminster Abbey, Harrow evensong and Hampton Court evensong. And in May the singers are visiting Paris where they’ll perform in various indoor and outdoor venues.
All the children get involved in drama, with each year group putting on a play; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the latest sell-out production. Drama scholars are involved in the advanced drama club, helping out with the costumes, make-up and lighting for all the year group plays.
Art lessons take place in a light-filled studio under the watchful eye of the enthusiastic head of art who encourages the pupils to evaluate their own work. The D&T room is well equipped with wooden work benches and equipment including circular saws and laser cutters. There’s an F1 manufacturing initiative for Years 4 to 8 that sees the boys designing, manufacturing and producing a car which they then race nationally.
A two-part Discovery programme was launched in 2022 for the Year 7 and 8 boys. On Friday afternoons, they go off timetable and choose from a selection of topics, including evolution, genetics, sign language and linguistic puzzles, which they learn for the sheer joy of it – no tests, no stress. The second part of the programme sees speakers coming into the school to deliver seminars to the boys. Parents are invited as well and the quality of speakers is high, including Sky Sports’ Formula 1 presenter Simon Lazenby.
More than 50 clubs run each week, including shooting, karate, fencing, cookery and chess club. They change termly and run Monday to Thursday. In the summer term, there’s an activities week – from Year 4 it’s residential, with the Year 8s spending a week in Ardèche with an overnight kayaking excursion. Year 3s enjoy day trips throughout the year. There are school ski holidays and recently a trip to South Africa.
The four houses provide opportunities for lots of inter-house competitions including sports, quizzes, singing and poetry reading. Each year, the pupils nominate a charity they fundraise for by taking part in a sponsored run and staging the annual talent competitions. The school also supports a range of other charities – and fundraising efforts help provide books for local communities and sports shoes for children in Laos.
School community
Pastoral care is strong. There are timetabled PSHE lessons and a safeguarding team that monitors the school’s ‘Say Something’ message system. This works via an icon on the computer screen that boys can click and send messages through to the team if they’re having an issue. Every member of staff from the bus drivers, kitchen staff and groundsmen to the teachers and senior leadership team look out for the boys’ wellbeing, and every boy has informal check-ins with their tutor. The school works hard with the boys to let them know it’s ok to not be ok, and there is always someone to talk to. A buddy system operates between Year 3s and 8s, and parents come into school to talk to the boys about how they live the school values in their lives.
The ‘fabulous’ parent body is very active, says Mrs Hubbard, organising a summer ball, a sports dinner and a comedy night, among other events. They also support events for the pupils such as a much-loved five-aside football event in the summer term. It helps create a joined-up and cohesive community, says Mrs Hubbard. ‘Parents can make lifelong friendships, as well as the boys.’
And finally....
There’s an aspirational mindset here undoubtedly – with stellar academic results that tell their own story – but the emotional support and environment of kindness ensure no one’s sweating grades. ‘I am delighted with the sense of community we have,’ says Mrs Hubbard. And so she should be.