St Anthony’s Prep in Hampstead

[MarthaHubbard]

Can anyone give any feedback on St Anthony’s School in Hampstead? Deposit required before other school assessments and wanted to hear from anyone with any experience there. TIA!

Hi Tia

Our son is currently in Year 6 at St Anthony's. He joined the school in Year 5, previously he was at Eleanor Palmer our local primary school. We moved him as we were concerned that he would not have had enough prep to complete the 11+ exams. He was very happy and settled at his old school, so was quite sad to be moved at that age.

However, from the first week of attending St Anthony's he would bound out, very happy and full of interesting facts he had learnt at school.

We were very much welcomed by our year group of parents and the children from day one. The parents have been really supportive and there is a really nice community feel to the school.

I have been particularly impressed with the excellent pastural care, which started from the first day Amit joined. It took on many forms to include the teaching assistants keeping a really close eye on him at break times, to the form teacher providing excellent support to ensure he was a part of the year group instantly, to the teachers and headmaster who were always really supportive.

During the lockdown earlier this year, the teaching staff really held the boys, I was so impressed with all aspects of the online learning they were provided with, in particular the Registration time every morning to check in with the boys, the remote games session which were really accessible and interactive, to the end of the week class where boys got to be together to celebrate their successes and discuss things which were bothering them. The boys completed a rigour term's curriculum, and I think St Anthony's went the extra mile to ensure the boys were getting the best out of the online learning.

We are currently in the throws of 11+ and 13+ exams, and at this time the school has been really supportive, providing invaluable advise and has held our hand though what is a very stressful time.

I would highly recommend St Anthony's in fact a few weeks ago my son commented that he was glad that we made the move and that he really loves it there. Please let me know if you have any specific questions, I would be very happy to help if I can.

Thanks and good luck, perhaps I will see you next term.

Bandini

Sorry meant rigorous term's curriculum.

St Antony's had massive safeguarding issues a couple of years ago. But I hear things are better now.

Thank you so much for this! It’s great to hear from someone at the school.

Please PM if you are able to elaborate on this. Thanks!

I'd love to hear a little more about St Anthony's from any parent who has a DS at the school this past year. I have heard there has been a change in headmaster unexpectedly and now also junior head has left?

I would also be interested to hear more about this from anyone with children at St A’s ... much appreciated!

@MarthaHubbard Hello! There doesn't seem to be much recent chat about St A's. I hope someone can give us a little bit of recent feedback. Are you thinking of it for your DS in September?

@Maggiemootwo2
St.Anthony’s Boys is fantastic - we are at the Girls school and we love it!

Thank you for the feedback!! Everyone seems very positive about both schools!

My son is in Reception and it’s been a very bumpy ride to say the least- at the beginning of the year there were non stop issues with biting, scratching, bullying behaviour in the playground. The head of junior house had a boys will be boys attitude, plus no incidents were recorded and no incident forms were ever filled out- so the great pastoral care I was expecting has been non existent in Reception. The new head seems to be introducing a lot of changes, so hoping things will improve.

What happened to the previous headmaster?

Parent of a boy currently in year three who has been at St Anthony’s since reception. Like Bandini, we’ve been extremely happy with the school and the broader community. The school is big enough to offer variety yet small enough that boys receive individual attention. It has been great for our son.

With respect to the prior headmaster Paul, in my experience he was extremely well regarded by the parents. He was also credited with providing the leadership that has taken Saint Anthonys up a level in terms of academic results over the past decade. At the start of last academic year he sadly announced that he would be retiring in the summer. The following is simply my perceptions as a parent with no inside knowledge. When Covid hit in March 2020 the school, like most institutions, was scrambling to put together it’s response plan and transition to online learning. As far as I saw, most parents were extremely supportive and understood the significant uncertainty that teachers and the school’s leadership was grappling with. I guess that was not universally true and there were some very vocal parents in the upper school who were unhappy with the fact that the school did not have a pandemic online learning plan sitting on the shelf that they could instantly implement. Again, I have no idea what was happening behind the scenes, but there were some very public defenses of the teachers’ efforts by Paul and official complaints by said parents to Alpha Plus. Then Paul suddenly announced he was retiring effectively immediately. That certainly came as a shock, but it was only a term before he was set to retire anyway. Parents who know him better than I do have indicated that the episode was incredibly stressful for all of the teachers, and he may have just hit a point where—months away from retirement—he decided to pack it in early. I really don’t know. It is sad from the standpoint that he should’ve been properly celebrated for all he’s done to make the school what it is today and that never really happened.

Hear now on the Hamsptead drums that the wonderful Head of Reception has also resigned !

That's really awful news. The school haven't let us know that!

Hearing so many mixed reviews and if good staff aren't happy and are leaving that is seriously worrying.

Taking it off my 'possible' list for reception 21/22!

Hello! Any recent feedback to share? Our son will be starting in the nursery at the Boys school. Thanks!

Our eldest son has been at the school since reception and our youngest went through the nursery at the girl's school and is currently heading into Year 1. As I mentioned above, we have been very happy with the school and particularly impressed with the way in which the nursery prepped our younger son for learning. I am a university lecturer, so a high-quality educational experience is a priority. Based on conversations with parents at neighboring schools, we believe St A does a much better job of preparing boys academically for senior school than others.

Thank you so much for your feedback. That is really reassuring to hear!!