Relaxed small schools

[Hs28]

Hello! I'm looking for advise having spent many hours googling and getting nowhere. My two children. (4 and 6) are currently at educare small school in Kingston upon Thames and they absolutely love it as do I.

However my husband has been offered the chance to work from home and we'd love a change of scenery and the chance to be somewhere a little more rural.

We've investigated and visited a range of potential areas (the only real criteria bing that we need to be within two hours of London by train) and I was looking to narrow this down based on schools but I haven't found anything I like as much as their current school.
I'd like to avoid steiner if possible due to the various mixed and negative reviews (although they tick many boxes). I'm looking for a friendly 'informal' independent child based education that looks at the child as an individual and a whole rather than grades and key stage results ideally in a small school community where everybody knows each other.

I would so appreciate if anybody could suggest any schools that I could look into

Have you looked at Bloo House already? You wouldn't even have to move that far!

Are you looking for state or private?

There is a Froebel school (called, I think, 'the Froebel School'!) near Lewes in Sussex. I've met the Head, and it sounds wonderful - I'd definitely send my girls there if we didn't live in London

theacornschool.com/
I don't think they take children until age 6/7 but is this the type of school you were looking for?
Lovely part of the country as well - the Cotswolds.

Wow thank you for the suggestions, I'm feeling a lot more confident about it all already!
Bloo house sounds wonderful but we were hoping for more of a move- tempting though! I'll look into the froebal school and the acorn school too, they sound exactly the kind of thing that I'm looking for. As far as state or private, either would be fine, I'd love to find a suitable state school but I'm not sure how likely that is.
Thanks so much again for the ideas!

You could look at the Human Scale Education website for some more schools which are aiming for what you want.

Thanks for that, hse seems very much what I was looking for lap though I only seem to be able to find a list of schools for secondary education, perhaps I'm missing something though- will keep looking. Thanks again!

Is there many state school like this around the country. Would be of great interest to me, but until this thread i was unaware they were any.

I don't think there are many tiny state schools because it isn't economical, but I guess there are bound to be a few in rural areas. The only one I happen to know of is Hollinsclough, which I didn't mention before because it is too far from London for the OP.

Oh, here's a tiny (private) Montessori primary which might be near enough to London: www.oxfordmontessori.co.uk/ There must be other small Montessori schools around too.

I've never particularly looked into the subject as we are happy to home educate, which is about as small and individual as it gets!

Come to think of it, Hs28, if you don't necessarily need school five full days a week but you want something school-like, then maybe you could home ed and send your kids to a centre like one of these for part of the time:
www.homeeducators.co.uk/heroes.html
www.theotherwiseclub.org.uk/

We have a tiny school very close by, numbers in the 30s but is the same as other state school as in the curriculum they have to follow etc was interested in the ethos of what op seemed to be looking for - no national testing and 'traditional discipline methods' often used in state schools.

saracen take my hat of to you home educating, I wish I could, but I know it would be too much for me personally. I find homework difficult with all of mine around.

My daughter goes to a small (81) local state primary just like this in Dorset (2 hours 10 mins by train). PM me if you want to know where.

Oh, I would find homework difficult too, Angels!! We don't do any.

It's nice to have the choice of doing formal work if I feel it's what my children want and need, or letting them learn in other ways if that seems to suit them better. With kids at school, I guess you pretty much have to go along with whatever the teacher thinks is best for the class as a whole.

Yes we do, although we are lucky to have some good schools close by would still do things a bit differently if I had my way but I suppose that is the way it will always be using a school.

I have 4 aged between 1 and 6 so just don't think I could manage home school as much as I love the idea of it

Hello again, I know it's been a while since I started this but wanted to thank everybody for their suggestions, I would love to homeschool but my husband is against it and to be honest I'm not the most socialable person and I would t want my children to miss out on company because of my hermit tendencies!
We're quite seriously looking at the norfolk/suffolk area but I've been totally unable to find any schools like this anywhere nearby.. Maybe I'm asking too much but if anybody has any ideas I'd be so grateful!
Thank you all again!

Whereabouts are you looking on the Norfolk/Suffolk border? We live right near the main Norwich-London trainline and my husband works in London and he can do door to door to his office in under 2 hours.

There are loads of little villages around here with tiny primary schools...possibly not quite as small as you are looking but definitely small! Feel free to PM if I can help.

If you in a rural area there will be most likely some tiny state schools.My DD is at a school of 40 odd pupils and has only 15 in her class.A neighbouring village has a school of only 15 pupils in total!

Bloo did not work out well for us or a lot of other parents

Crewe in Cheshire is 1.30 from London. Quite a few small primary schools in Cheshire

My DC were at a small (100) village primary which was kind, relaxed and excellent in every way. Like a family. I'll pm you the name if you like, a few homes for sale here. Why not look at the Midlands, it's a quick service into London on the lines into Euston.

Frensham Heights in Surrey.

Bloo House is a school beset with problems - huge turnover of upset parents - no back bone to their ethos - the Head shouted at my friend when she told her that she was removing her daughter. Just terrible.

If you're not set on Norfolk, look at the Annan School (it's in East Sussex). We nearly sent DC there, but ended up opting for a smallish local state primary instead. Some days I regret that decision as we have friends with kids at Annan and it has some wonderful qualities.

Might be a bit too far, but check out Perrott Hill on the Somerset/Dorset border, is 2.5 hours into Waterloo by train. It's a country prep school with loads of outside space, forest school etc. Also very small, only 180 kids from nursery up to year 8 so class sizes are around 10. My two are there and are loving it. There's a new Head this September coming from Polwhele House in cornwall so I think it's going to get even better. Is also a great area for senior schools - it feeds into loads of different schools - Bryanston, Canford, Sherborne, the Taunton schools, King's Bruton (which is currently my fave as really small too, only 300 kids or so), as well as Harrow, Winchester etc. Some of the kids go into the local secondaries at Beaminster and do very well. The kids all seem very happy anyway and I'm glad we made the move. good luck with wherever you choose!

Definitely go for Suffolk! We live in a small riverside town called Woodbridge, recently voted one of the top 10 places to live in the country - it’s friendly and really pretty and absolutely heavenly in the summer. Riverside walks, not far from Southwold, Aldeburgh and train journey to London is just over an hour so if you need to escape to the big city you can. Our DC are at Woodbridge School which is a gorgeous school - fantastic teaching and huge range of extra-curricular activities. Queen’s House is the pre-prep and The Abbey is the prep -the emphasis is on learning through fun and the children are just so happy there - the Abbey site particularly is totally idyllic. The new head of the Abbey and Queens is really focussed - her view is that kids need to do fun and exciting things to be good learners - so they have been building box carts and doing loads of outside learning. Definitely recommend both Woodbridge and the school!