Rowan Prep Claygate

[schoolrunnewbie]

We are considering sending our daughters to Rowan Prep in Claygate and wondered if anyone knows the school?

It seems to be a small school which is quite academic but I am worried it might be too small.

It has lots of great schools on its destinations list which is encouraging. What is sport at the school like?

Any insight would be gratefully received.

Thank you :)

It’s a great prep school, it’s owned by United Learning who also own Guildford high and Surbiton high and it shares the sports facilities with Surbiton high.

What other preps are you considering?

We are manly considering Rowan, possibly Parkside or Milbourne Lodge.

We have concerns about the co-ed nature of the latter two - they seem to be boys schools who take girls - Milbourne Lodge especially doesn’t seem to have many girls or facilities for girls such as sports options as the number of girls higher up the school seems to dwindle (I may be wrong though).

We are also wondering if we should just skip the 11+ and apply for Guildford or Surbiton Prep schools but the journey would not be as good.

it is really hard to know the best course!

I assume that behaviour is good in all of these schools and that academically the children will be pushed?

tia

Yes there is a difference between Parkside, ML and a girls prep and you need to see what works for your family. Personally I’m not keen on the surbiton girls prep location and it’s a long way to go to Guildford for many years just to avoid 11plus - you should also follow the ghs 7plus thread because they seem to be packing dd more into the ghs prep.
Basically you have loads of choice for prep (none are full) and the 11plus isn’t that bad if you are at somewhere like Rowan that preps for it so well. Rowan also as the financial backing from UL.
Look at things like walking to school, wrap around care, cost of clubs etc.

Also if you want good sport have you looked at Danes Hill?

I have friends with daughters at rowan, and what I would say is that they have said that the 11+ prep there is not great and that the results are predominantly due to a lot of tutoring that goes on outside of school. They say its a lovely school pastorally, but that by the time the children get up to year 4 or 5 parents seem increasingly anxious about the pace of the curriculum and light touch 11+ focus. That said, as I am not a parent there myself this is second hand info through friends with kids there at the moment going through it, so it should be taken as such. I had a daughter at Milbourne who left last year and they did an incredible job with the 11+. I had had my ups and downs with the lower number of girls in her year group, but ended up feeling so incredibly grateful to them for how well they prepared the children for their next steps, and would say that every child is given the opportunity to reach their potential whatever that may be. There are fewer girls currently in the prep but I believe the pre prep is now 50/50 and possibly even slightly more girls than boys (but of course, girls could leave at the end of year 2 for GHS / LEH etc to avoid the 11+ down the line).

Thanks for the comments.

Lots of food for thought here. I hadn’t realised that Rowan was great at prepping for 11+ - I thought they were one of the better prep schools in the area.

I also hadn’t realised that ML had near enough equal numbers of girls and boys. We are predominantly looking for single sex I think but if ML is small and good at 11+ prep then I think we need to go to their open day. Thanks for the suggestion.

@hockeyfunwe discounted Danes as I thought that it doesn’t have a great reputation locally as it seems very monied. It’s really big which put us off

I have a daughter at Rowan brae and one who has just done her 11+ there. I could not be happier with the way they handled the 11+ prep. My daughter has done fantastic as have the whole year group. I have not added any further tuition. I would always recommend this school. The staff are so loving and genuinely care. The facilities are fantastic. Couldn’t recommend it enough.