London prep schools: the inside track

Main image: Cameron Vale 

Our London Prep Schools focus page is the our virtual equivalent of a live event, designed to bring you everything you need to know about choosing a primary education in the capital for your son or daughter.   

It’s no secret that snagging a place at one of London’s top preps is rarely a walk in the park – and the process is more often than not a world away from the gentle taster days that have become the mainstay of many a country prep’s admissions process. London prep schools are perennially oversubscribed. Some require a child to sit selective testing from Reception age, while others even ask parents to ping off their registration form from the maternity ward. But it’s worth the nerves and anxiety: London prep schools offer an outstanding education, knockout facilities, access to the capital’s cultural treasures and a refreshingly cosmopolitan pupil roll.   

The London prep-school scene certainly isn’t resting on its laurels. New schools, pre-preps and nurseries are springing up all the time – close-knit Chelsea prep Cameron Vale has just started welcoming babies into its smart, newly refurbished nursery from the tender age of three months. Others are pouring significant investment into their facilities, such as Pembridge Hall, which recently flung open the doors to its forward-thinking Innovation Centre, complete with a green screen for budding presenters, videographers and producers, plus a stack of VR headsets and spaces for coding and robotics. Last term, Dulwich Prep London opened its stunning new nursery classrooms, after many years of researching and trialling the best practices and products to provide an outstanding start to a child's education. 

Some schools are tapping into London’s most eminent academics; St Anthony’s School for Boys recently rolled out a brand-new lecture series for pupils, aiming to open young minds and inspire critical thinking. One recent visitor included Dr Ludivine Broch, a lecturer in modern European history at Westminster University, who talked to the boys about the crisis in Ukraine. Tarun Ramadorai, a professor of financial economics at Imperial College London is scheduled to visit later this term.   


If you’re considering keeping your child in the capital for their entire school career, there’s one very clear advantage to picking a London prep: automatic transfer to some of the city’s top senior schools, the lion’s share of which have extremely daunting applicant-to-place ratios. Take Bancroft’s Prep School, the younger sibling to Bancroft’s School. Prep pupils are offered automatic entry into the thriving senior school at 11+, allowing them not only to bypass the nail-biting application process, but also ensuring that focus isn’t narrowed as pupils move up the school. At many standalone preps, the final year is dominated by preparation for entrance exams.   

It’s a similar story at King’s College Junior School, and if you’ve got your eye on a highly coveted place at the senior school, the prep is a very good place to start. At 11+, 600 children tussle it out for just 60 places, whereas junior-school pupils move straight on up, brilliantly primed for an education at the highly academic senior. At Royal Russell School in Croydon, the transition between the junior and senior schools is just as seamless, and with younger pupils popping up to the big school every day for lunch, the move all feels incredibly natural once the time comes.  


Many London preps are part of a family of schools, which can be a logistical godsend for parents. The Falcons group – which includes Falcons Pre-Prep, Falcons Prep Richmond and Falcons School for Girls – offers a very attractive discount to families with multiple children at any of its schools, and even hands out bursaries to pupils from nursery age. Wetherby School (part of a family of schools offering boys a well-trodden path all the way from nursery to A-levels) sits just a few doors down from its sibling Pembridge Hall, and with aligned term dates and heaps of shared parents, they are the dream duo for families trying to juggle multiple school runs each day.   

Others have a special relationship with London’s senior schools. Redcliffe Gardens School is Kensington recently became a member of the Godolphin and Latymer Foundation, and while there’s no priority entry to Godolphin and Latymer School, the hugely popular senior is a natural next step for many prep pupils, who are expertly guided through the admissions and exam process.   

Cast aside any preconceptions about space and facilities at a London prep too. Dulwich Prep London – tucked away in a leafy south London suburb but not far at all from central London – champions a muddy-knees education and gives its boys the feel of a country prep, as well as the hustle and bustle of a city school. They’ve made clever use of every inch of space with a meadow garden, a clutch of beehives and even an observatory on the roof, and for longer leg-stretching sessions, there’s a further 25 acres of playing fields just a few minutes’ walk away. Prince’s Gardens Prep is located within striking distance of Hyde Park, but it’s what’s on campus that’s got us excited – two acres including a nature garden, vegetable tubs, forest school and a completely hidden, tucked-away secret garden you’d never expect to be there, and just the sort of space and facilities that London parents are queuing up for. Youngsters at Falcons Pre-Prep climb trees, hunt for bugs, roll down hills and get mucky during weekly outdoor education lessons.


Some schools can even unlock the doors to London’s most hallowed sporting grounds: The Village Prep School in Belsize Park has a special partnership with the Saracens Rugby Club and Saracens Mavericks netball squad (lucky middle and upper school pupils are off to take part in a training session with them next week), while Devonshire House pupils get to use Lord’s for cricket practice. Cool or what?  


If you’d like to check out London’s top prep schools yourself, be sure to visit our Open Days guide, which details all the dates you need to add to your diary this term. And for the inside track on life at a London prep school, browse our dedicated London Preps focus.