Walton Prep Schools

[Purplelemon7]

Hi

Does anyone know anything about the prep schools near Walton eg Danesfield, Westward, Feltonfleet, St George’s etc. Are any of these schools very academic with good numbers of students getting into selective schools like Hampton/LEH, Tiffin etc. Thanks

Westward is insanely small both in terms of physical space and class sizes. When we looked round we genuinely felt claustrophobic. By contrast have a look at St George's or Claremont Fan which is on 100 acres!

The websites will tell you where the children go on to at 11. Out of all of them, FF and George’s probably have best reputations. But FF is not a particularly academic school at all, even though it’s a nice school. George’s is quite mixed, and most kids go there with the intention of going through the senior school but there is some movement. Claremont isn’t known for academics either (actually the opposite), but again is a nice rounded school.

Why not try for eg LEH and Hampton directly? Other schools with best chance of getting you into them are probably Rowan for girls or Milbourne and Shrewsbury for boys. Small prep schools like Westward or Weston Green just can’t offer the same experiences as the larger ones, especially if you’re wanting to go single sex.

Make sure you know what you’re getting with schools like LEH, Hampton and Tiffin. There’s a lot of hot housing and many parents tutor from a young age and all the way through just to get in / stay in. They sound great but it’s just not that simple. How old are your DC?

Thank you both for the info!

My kids are still pretty young but we are looking to move and considering a few different areas so I want to know what the schools are like to help inform my decision: Walton/Hersham, Hinchley Wood/Claygate and Carshalton/Cheam (I think the lack of a good girls prep might rule this area out). Ideally someone would tell me there’s a fantastic, academic co-ed prep somewhere but so far I haven’t found any. The preps that seem to be very good are Rowan/Millbourne Lodge and Hampton Prep/LEH Juniors. I guess I need to look into what the journeys are like from Walton and Hinchley Wood to these schools. I know that traffic around Hampton can be bad so that might make commuting from outside Hampton for Hampton Prep/LEH juniors difficult.

I have a pretty good idea of what the hot house environment is like because I went to one of the schools you’ve mentioned. I think if my children weren’t very academic it would be easier to find a less academic school in both the private and state sector, but if they are academic I’d like them to have the option to attend a good academic school.

Tbh OP, look at the league tables first of all, but most of the effort for kids to get into these schools comes from the parents not the schools which is why they’ll all have some who go. Quite honestly, no matter how academic your kids are they’re unlikely to get in without extra help.

However the school you choose will dictate how much extra work you need to do to get there. So if you choose FF or similar, yes you could do it, but you’ll need to do a LOT of extra work for them to be up to standard. If you choose Rowan, Milbourne or Shrewsbury then you won’t need to do as much as the schools are much better at preparing them. But wherever you go, you should expect to have to do a lot of work outside of school, and a lot of extra curricular activities (and not just stuff everyone does like dancing) to give the kids the best chance of getting in. The smaller the school you choose the more you’ll have to supplement activities outside school as they just can’t compete with the quality of teams and breadth of options you get at the bigger preps. But on the other hand if you go somewhere as big as eg Danes Hill, there’s a higher chance your kid will get lost and more people to compete with for a few coveted spaces.

I’d be looking first at Rowan, Milbourne, Shrewsbury, St George’s then Feltonfleet after that. Claremont wouldn’t be on my radar at all if I was aiming for those secondaries, nor would Westward or Weston Green.

I’d also be looking to get the kids in at age 7 not leaving it to 11. Ultimately the best prep for each of those schools is probably their own.

Destination schools - not league tables!!! Sorry!!

@Whichschoolinsurrey Yes I agree a lot of parental effort is required. I guess I feel that as a working parent it would help me if the school was helping somewhat with the preparation.

I think destination schools to aim for would be Hampton/LEH or Guildford High/RGS. I think living in Hinchley Wood would give us both options as there is the coach service for the Hampton schools and the train for the Guildford ones.
Out of curiosity you didn’t mention Hampton Prep or LEH juniors is that because you’re less familiar with them? They are obviously good choices for feeding into the Hampton schools but my reservation is that the traffic around Hampton Court might be a real pain

I mentioned them at the end of the post - the best preps are their own and moving at 7 is better than 11. But it’s still not a guarantee that you’ll go through to seniors and feedback I hear locally is that if you don’t fit in there’s not a lot of support to help catch up etc.

Aldo the traffic is horrific everywhere, not just Hampton although yes it’s worse there. But no matter where you go it’s awful, a big reason many use school buses.

Yes the school buses are great in the long run but I guess we will have to do the drops offs for the first few years before they are ready for the bus. As DH keeps saying to me we will just have to accept it’s going to be a pain for a bit and then it will get better!

I think the boys' preps with good reputation for feeding into academic schools are Millbourne Lodge and Shrewsbury House. Feltonfleet and Claremont have reps as happy schools. St George's also seems lovely.

The commute to Hampton/LEH I think are really doable in peak times. To Guildford, is longer but the A3 does tend to be traffic free most of the time but you will get traffic getting to the A3 itself. We had the same dilemma as we live in Walton and we chose GHS prep in the end as it takes from 4+. LEH only takes from 7+ so we didn’t want to be faced with not potentially getting a place at that age. I’m not looking forward to the pick up and drop offs every day in the car but we will have to stick it out until Y6. We have also thought about loving closer to the A3- Cobham/ Esher to make the journey a bit quicker. I would join the online open days and try to see if you can have a look around in the holidays at least. I actually really liked Westward- they get loads into the top schools/scholarships but we wanted somewhere with an abundance of facilities

Also Feltonfleet prepare most for boarding schools so you may want to consider if that’s suitable for you or not

Having done the rounds a couple of years ago of local private preps and pre preps, and friends with kids in most of the local schools, I would just get yourself booked in when you can start visiting schools in person again. You just can’t compensate for getting your own gut feel on what’s right for your kids when you go round the school, eg schools I thought would be right based on forums like this weren’t. I know lots of people with girls at Rowan and are very pleased. We opted for Shrewsbury House Pre Prep and are delighted. Right balance for us in push vs nurture in those early years. Milbourne seems pushier than both of these and FF, and DH less so but better facilities if that’s what you are looking for. SG in between. CF, WG and Parkside more nurturing than academic.

@Eshermum73 Yes I really hope we can visit soon. I still have time before they start. I guess at the moment I’m trying to figure out where we want to move to. Esher/HW/Claygate seems to be the best areas as they offer a number of options for both boys and girls. I just need to find a nice property!

@Redcart21 Thanks, the journeys are something I really need to work out because we are both working so I really want to minimise travelling time

If you see a great house, snap it up. Houses aren’t hanging around for long round here at the moment. Good luck!

@Eshermum73 :D
Out of interest do you know what the girl/boy ratios are like at Shrewsbury and Millbourne Lodge?

Both are more boy lead given Rowan just down the road so both have lots of boys with sisters at Rowan. Milbourne def have more girls as they are co-ed throughout but I think ratios vary a bit on year / class groups. Shrewsbury have less as they feed into a boys prep in year 3 (although a fair few girls in nursery). I’m sure I heard the hm say at a recent parents evening he’s hired someone from Rowan as they’re committed to creating a bigger girl intake and want to give comfort they can provide a strong co-ed environment. If you don’t mind going further afield, Downsend and Ripley Court both have good reputations if other schools previously mentioned don’t work for you.

I can try to answer this @Purplelemon7. Milbourne cap girls at approx 25% in the preprep (or certainly did until recently, at that time they had two classes of 16, so 4 girls in each. This might have changed. Many girls leave Milbourne at 7 to go to LEH or GH or similar, so if that’s your destination then it serves them well.

Shrewsbury preprep has virtually no girls. The past couple of years there have been max a couple of girls that went through to Y2, in some years none past reception. Most leave at the end of nursery, not because there is anything wrong with the school but because other girls go, meaning there are less girls for them to be friends with so it’s a chicken and egg issue. However, I suspect any drive to increase the number of girls is actually because the overall intake at the moment is very low, rather than there being any aspiration to be truly coed. The low intake doesn’t reflect any problems with the school now, it reflects problems that they had with a couple of very poor heads a few years back before the current head (who is excellent) was brought in. It also reflects the fact they start at 3, whereas Milbourne and esher church school (across the Road) don’t. So instead of all the nursery kids going straight up into reception, lots of parents just use the nursery for a year with the intention of going elsewhere. A shame, but not much that can be done about it. It’s a lovely school. Milbourne and Rowan also lovely. As long as you know what you’re getting into with regards to culture at each one you’ll be happy. Shrewsbury is very rounded and nurturing and seems to develop kids well, down to Earth. Milbourne much more focused on academics, tends to attract noticeable number of tiger / helicopter parents who have high ambitions for their kids. Rowan also has more than its fair share of helicopter parents. Ultimately though that’s why they get the results, so it depends on the extent to which you want to commit to that route.

Whilst I don’t disagree with many of your comments at @Whichschoolinsurrey, if I could correct you on 1 point. This year Shrewsbury PP reception ended up with 2 less children in their overall year group vs Milbourne. Many of the children came up from nursery (I believe a few years ago they had more leave after nursery due to previous struggling HM). Like you say, not as pushy as a Milbourne, but definitely more drive than other schools previously named in this area.

That’s good to hear, I’m glad it’s heading in the right direction

Thank you both so much!

Would you say I’m right in thinking there are no truly co educational pre-preps/preps around here that are similar to Millbourne Lodge/Rowan/LEH juniors etc?

Also do these schools take on most applicants or is it competitive? I know they have some sort of assessment morning even for pre prep! I’ve heard that in the current economic climate there isn’t a need to register ASAP or competition for places but I don’t know if that’s true.

Danes Hill is properly coed and gets good results but it’s enormous and highly competitive, a totally different concept to the Esher schools and easy for kids to get lost in if they don’t stand out. So yes, I would say there is no fully coed school which is seen as being as academically high achieving as them. Bear in mind we are only talking about Shrewsbury preprep here so don’t discount it on the basis of academics. Most of the boys go on to Shrewsbury House prep in surbiton which gets superb academic results whilst also being more sporty and with better facilities than eg Milbourne. But it depends what you’re looking for and you’d need to see the schools. Milbourne probably has a slight academic edge over SHS but SHS is probably for an academic boy who also wants lots of great sports, music, extracurricular etc. Not that milbourne don’t have, but there is a slight trade off for both.

No idea about entrance at the moment, I don’t know what Covid will mean for applications. Anecdotally more are moving their kids into private schools but anecdotally more are also quitting the commuter towns for somewhere that is better value for money. You don’t get much for what you pay here at all.

Anecdotally also lots of people from London looking to move to this area as it still has good train links. So this year will be different to others. My guess is everywhere will be highly subscribed but when it comes down to places there will be enough to go around as there’s always movement and most people sign up to two or three.