Prep schools in Kingston/New Malden

[Sugar05]

Hi, We have 2DDs and are moving to Kingston/New Malden area. We were looking at a few preps in the area but wanted to know if anyone has first hand experience with some of the schools or have friends with children there. Our initial shortlist includes Park Hill, Study School and Westbury House in New Malden which looked promising but the last Ofsted report is somewhat concerning. Would love to hear your thoughts on any/all of the schools and also if we missed any. While prep for indies and grammers is important for us, we do not want to miss out exposure to extra curriculars. Thanks a lot

Holy cross www.holycrossprepschool.co.uk/page/default.asp?title=Home&pid=1 ?

Surbiton High or Holy Cross both girls only from 4 years old.

The Study is a lovely school with excellent results. Weston Green in Thames Ditton is similar. Westbury House has been taken over by an education group, I would ask them questions about this, the Ofsted report may be from old ownership.

Surbiton Juniors avoids the need to change at 11 but it's a marmite school, you will know when you view it if it's rights for your family. Holy Cross is 1 of the top Prep schools in the area,

You have lots of choice and not many of the smaller Prep schools in SW London are full at the moment.

Do you mean the Study School in New Malden or The Study Prep in Wimbledon Village? Sunshine was probably talking about The Study Prep in Wimbledon - often just called 'The Study' - which is a very lovely, high-achieving all-girls school.

The Study School in New Malden (boys and girls) is more of a small local prep. Nurturing, but I've heard concerns about it being a bit too small.

Holy Cross is idyllic (beautiful old school in lovely grounds) and well-regarded but definitely religious, so it depends whether that is for you.

Also consider Rowan Prep in Claygate. Only up to 11, but a really, really lovely school with excellent destinations. Pre-prep and Prep are in separate buildings: very cosy and nurturing for the little ones, but then stepping up to a bigger more grown-up junior school.

You haven't mentioned the selective ones:

• Surbiton High School Is easy to reach from New Malden. It's academic, but not very. It is huge, but seems to manage that well.

- Is Wimbledon High too far? That's very selective and girls do need to keep up. Maybe not what you're looking for since your shortlist is smaller, more local preps.

In all seriousness you'd be hard pressed to find a "bad" school in Kingston

Yes I agree with all the other posts and if you can reach Claygate Rowan Prep is my most favourite girls Prep (but I'm not a parent), you never hear a bad word about it.

We're not religious, let alone Catholic, but our two went to Holy Cross, one for just one year, one for four. You can't opt out of religious teaching but we never felt our two were brainwashed.
It wasn't our first choice but we'd recently returned to the UK and places everywhere were scarce. We were very pleased in the end - lovely school with excellent results in the 11 plus exams for both Tiffin and the independents.
This was all quite a while ago though.

Thank you all. This is really really helpful. Rowan looks lovely but the school run may be challenging. Nevertheless, I will try a dry run in the morning rush-hour to see if it is manageable.
To be honest, I didn't know that their are 2 'The Study's'. I was told to check out Study and ended up looking at the one in New Malden!! Wimbeldon seems very convenient, so thank you for clarifying. I will definitely go for a visit.
Will keep you all updated on how it goes!