Fulham Prep

[simona28]

Hi all, a new member here, recently moved to London and have 2 children, one of whom will be starting reception soon.

I wanted to get some current opinions on Fulham Prep as most other threads on this were a year+ old. I visited the school but am quite bad at 'judging' how good a school is in a 2-hour trip. I was educated outside of UK, so that might be a factor as well.

I also noticed that their OFSTED ranking has gone down recently from Outstanding to Good. Have any parents raised this with the school yet, is the school doing anything proactively about the points highlighted in the report? They have been downgraded on almost all criteria. Will be really good to get some feedback on this from parents of current students...or people who know the school well!

[rpg123]

I am also interested in learning more about the school. I quite like that it is one of the few co-ed non-selective schools in the area. Have only seen mixed reviews from 4 yrs ago and nothing more recent. Thanks

[simona28]

I know 3-4 parents now who had admission offers but did not take it because of the downgraded rating in 2017, instead choosing to send kids to state for the first couple years

[MMmomDD]

Have several friends with kids in the school and they are happy there.
Thing is about these ratings - they take a lot of things into account, some academic, and a lot of other kinds of indicators...

I think it’s silly to consider a ‘Good’ rating as something to be concerned about, and not take up the school offer because of that.

Fulham Prep is a good middle ground school - it’s not St.Pauls, or Westminster, or Latymer... It does a great job, given the non-selective intake - which gives them a large range of pupils.
It’s a mixed school, one of the few in the area. And it has the option to stay through to A-levels now, or move out at some points if your kid needs to be in a more academically challenged environment....

[VioletFlamingo]

I have heard good things. As PP said, it isn't a highly selective school but more middle ground. The avoiding 11+ factor is a huge bonus. The new prep head, Mr Lunnon, is from Eagle House/Wellington College and husband of the head of Wimbledon High which IMO is a great choice due to his experience. I work in a nearby prep and the talk is all that Fulham School is only going to go up.

[Paribus]

@VioletFlamingo, could you pls share the local rumour (if any!) re mr Flemming leaving? Do you know who might be a new head? TIA 🌺🌺

[JuliaS1981]

I can only comment on Fulham pre-prep, which DH and I are extremely happy with. The pre-prep is a lovely, nurturing environment full of happy kids and wonderful teachers.

Fulham Prep’s reputation has had a bit of a beating recently, which I am inclined to think is driven by (a) the Ofsted downgrade; and (b) the fact the prep is not academically selective, in contrast to many other local schools (e.g. St Pauls or Latymer) which makes the school less desirable in the eyes of some; (c) changing of some senior staff e.g. the head, following the Ofsted downgrade.

The Ofsted downgrade was a bit of a shock both to us as parents and to the school. We immediately questioned whether DD was at the right school and whether we should be moving her. But when we looked at it closely, it seems that the primary issue was that, at the time of the Ofsted visit, Fulham Prep had failed to put in place best practice monitoring systems (i.e. using data to monitor children’s progress) which then had a knock-on effect on almost all the assessment categories. I understand this has now been rectified and ultimately, I can’t imagine this has any meaningful impact on DD’s schooling. Equally I appreciate that this is an issue that many people can’t look past.

The fact the school isn’t selective or seen to be an academic powerhouse doesn’t concern us at this stage but bear in mind that DD is at the pre-prep so our primary concern is that she is happy. Which she is – she absolutely loves it. Difficult to say how we will feel if she progresses to the senior school but I’m pretty confident we could move her onto one of the local selective schools if we wanted to, with a little extra work. Clearly they won’t prep her for that so it would be on us, but so be it.

[Paribus]

@JuliaS1981, thank you! More interested re senior school tbh but good to know re pre- prep school as well! Any insights re new head will be tremendously appreciated. We asked our current prep school but noone seems to know who will be new HM or why the “old” one is leaving!

[Globaliser]

So that it’s clear, the head of the Prep school (Neil Lunnon) isn’t leaving, and is very well regarded. He is the husband of the Wimbledon High headmistress BTW. The head of the senior school is leaving, and his replacement has not been announced yet.

[Paribus]

Yes, i know- i was asking about the senior HM :).

[Twisties]

Our experience with Fulham Senior School has been disappointing.

We were told the new school site would be ready Sept 2018. However still not even approved late 2019.

Instead, the students had to make do with makeshift loft rooms where they're still located with an additional room for the new year group.

The GCSE option was crucial to our choice of senior school but only after the start of term were we told offering it was no longer feasible.

There are/were several good teachers (some have left), a few seriously angry/shouty teachers (one has now left) and a couple of disturbingly physical students who had been excluded from a local boys' school.

We found the HM unwilling to acknowledge many of the issues. With one that he promised to deal with "personally", he never followed through.

A school like FSS - non-selective, co-ed - is sorely needed in the area. The owner, Inspired Group, were smart to invest. However without adequate space for a growing number of mostly male teenagers and a strong HM focused on the students/teachers (instead of marketing/selling the school and dealing with external stakeholders in regards to development problems), it's not a fully formed school; not adequately equipped to look after students, especially in that age group.

I do hope Inspired Group sort it out soon - there are many families desperate for what they profess to offer.

[one4tennis]

@48Twisties I really welcome your insight here on the senior school. Are these teething issues which just need ironing out and down to the newness of the school? Are they due to a weak leadership at the school or do you think goes higher than the school leadership and is only something inspired can fix? Head is leaving. Could his replacement fix this? Is the head even being replaced? (I see no vacancy advertised presently) TIA

[Letsgetreal]

Does anyone (I guess current parents) know what their results are like for 11+/13+?

They are a prep school after all and ultimately should be judged solely on their success in getting places at established senior schools for their pupils.

There doesnt seem to any information on their website showing where their pupils move on to and I was wondering whether anyone has any experience/knowledge of what their success (or lack of) rate is?

[BC23]

The heads of the prep and preprep left very recently, along with a large number of the prep teaching staff, which was not a good sign. The heads were very popular, whilst the management team - owner is Inspired - is widely considered to out of touch with parents with a profit-focused ethos (admittedly not unusual) clearly on show. Teaching was generally good and our kids were happy, although you won't get a smart child through the 11+ process without a lot of tutoring. The school changed over our time and seems more focused now on pushing kids through the Inspired network of schools. The new prep head is from a Hong Kong international school, which shows their direction of travel. They moved years 9 and 10 from the senior school to the prep school for reasons that no one understands, and we didn't like. We found the school lurched from one problem to another and significant changes impacting our kids were made without any consultation so we left.

[Letsgetreal]

Interesting……..my youngest is at Fulham Prep and we get a deluge of totally unnecessary emails from them which I struggle to keep up with. But I knew about the change of head…again…..but the letter said he had come from Wetherby.

The move of years 9 and 10 back to the Prep I hadn’t heard about though. Inspired completely screwed up the site for the senior school and sorry but that’s tough on those who chose to send their kids to the senior school. Why should lose at the Prep lose space and facilities to accommodate the Inspired mismanagement? I’d love to know where you heard that.

At the moment the school seems okay but I agree with a lot of what you are saying.

Feel free to message me though rather than reply here.