The four best independent prep schools around Barnes and Mortlake are;
- Tower House School in East Sheen,
- Ibstock Place Prep School in Roehampton,
- The Harrodian Prep & Pre-Prep School in Barnes, and
- St Paul’s Juniors in Barnes.
They are all day schools and are within three miles of each other. They are in an area bounded by Richmond Park to the south, the River Thames to the north, Putney to the east, and Richmond to the west. Why choose these? Because these Barnes and Mortlake prep schools rank in the top 3% of schools in the country, as determined by the Schoolsmith Score.
If you’re putting together a shortlist of schools, this brief note might help you, because it actually compares the schools, just like you do. And there are links throughout to explainer articles (they open new tabs). There is also a partner review for state primaries in the same area; Barnes, Mortlake, East Sheen, and Roehampton. And that can be found here.
The schools offer some degree of choice, which I’ll expand on below. But, to cut to the chase, the highest scoring Barnes and Mortlake prep is St Paul’s Juniors. As the junior school and feeder to St Paul’s School, places are highly coveted, throughout London and the Home Counties.
The other three schools cater to a more local resident. Though hardly cheap, Tower House School offers the lowest fees and the best value for money of the four. Do you get what you pay for? It depends on what you want, and what’s important to you. I’ve got some quizzes to help you with that. Otherwise, dear reader, read on.
Age range, gender mix, and faith
Many parents don’t get beyond the obvious differences between schools. These are the structural differences such as age range, gender, faith, all-through or not. You may have a preference one way or another, but these aren’t indicators of a better education.
First of all, there’s gender mix. Barnes and Mortlake have two boys-only schools; St Paul’s Junior and Tower House School. And there are two mixed schools. Both Harrodian Prep and Pre-Prep and Ibstock Place Prep have roughly equal numbers of boys and girls.
As for age range;
- Tower House School; 4 to 13,
- Ibstock Place Prep School; 4 to 11,
- The Harrodian Prep & Pre-Prep School; 4 to 13,
- St Paul’s Juniors; 7 to 13.
Three of the schools educate children to age 13. At Tower House, in particular, this is for Common Entrance exams for independent day and boarding schools.
And none of the schools have a nursery or pre-school class. But the area is teeming with nurseries.
Ibstock Place Prep and Tower House offer a formalised wraparound childcare service from 7.30/7.50am to 5.00/5.30pm. However, with clubs, pupils at Harrodian and St Paul’s Junior could be at school from 8.00am to 5.00/6.00pm.
As for faith, all four prep schools welcome pupils of all faiths and none. St Paul’s School has a traditional affiliation to the Church of England, and has a chapel, and a chaplaincy. But like the other three schools, religious practice has a comparatively low profile.
Standalone preps and all-through schools
Tower House School is a standalone prep school. It exists to prepare pupils for entry into a range of schools at the end of Year 6 or 8. The benefit being that choice of destination is more informed in later prep years than in Nursery or Reception.
Ibstock Place Prep, Harrodian Prep, and St Paul’s Juniors, on the other hand, are junior departments of all-through schools to age 18. Here, the curricula are geared towards preparing their pupils for moving up into the senior school, rather than transferring to another school. And pupils are expected to make that transition. Which brings a benefit of a stress-free Year 6 or 8 for pupils, and parents. The school might also argue that teaching time can be diverted to activities more beneficial than exam preparation.
Academic selection and inspections
Ibstock Place Prep and St Paul’s Juniors are academically selective, with age-appropriate assessments as part of the admissions process. Tower House School is not academically selective, operating a waiting-list admissions procedure. Harrodian is not selective for the majority of pupils who join at Nursery and Reception. Assessments and selection are for new joiners from Year 4.
The degree of academic selectivity can dictate the pace of lessons. It can also be a prime determinant of academic outcomes; smarter pupils get better results. But not always. Demographics and, dare I mention, teaching, influence academic outcomes too.
ISI, the independent schools’ inspector, and Ofsted, observe that pupils’ ability profiles at these Barnes and Mortlake prep schools are ‘above average’. Irrespective of academic selection.
The most recent ISI inspections St Paul’s School (whole school), Ibstock Place School (whole school), and Tower House School were ‘Excellent’ across all areas. Ofsted rated Harrodian School (whole school) as ‘Good’.
Buildings and grounds
Unlike prep schools in most of Southwest London, two, maybe three, of these schools have extensive grounds.
St Paul’s Juniors is based in 1960s buildings on a 45-acre campus shared with the senior school. A £114M site redevelopment programme over nine years, aligns the whole school with the best equipped schools in the country.
Harrodian is the newest of the three schools; about thirty years old. It occupies the whitewashed buildings and 25 acres of a former country club by the Thames. The Pre-Prep, Prep, Seniors, and 6th Form share the site, which has a feel of a country boarding school. There is no school uniform but there is a dress code. It also has a notable international mix of pupils, reflecting the French, German and Spanish ex-pat families in Barnes, Mortlake, and East Sheen.
Ibstock Place Prep occupies two modern buildings in the eight-acre campus of an Edwardian mansion. It’s a highly redeveloped site in a parkside residential area. The teaching rooms are separated from the specialist facilities by road, with a footbridge connecting them.
Tower House School has more typical buildings for a southwest London Prep. It is based in two converted Victorian houses with purpose-built extensions, on a small plot.
Class sizes and classes per year
The size of a school can influence the ‘feel’ of a school, as well as the extensiveness and variety of facilities;
- 1 class per year; Tower House School,
- 2 classes per year; Ibstock Place Prep School,
- 2 classes per year rising to 3 then 4; Harrodian Prep and Pre-Prep School,
- 3 classes per year, rising to 4 then 5; St Paul’s Juniors.
Average class sizes at Barnes and Mortlake prep schools are between 20 and 23 pupils per class. They are not small.
Facilities at Barnes and Mortlake prep schools
Extensive on-site school playing fields and sports facilities in this part of London are a rarity. In fact, heading southwest from central London, St Paul’s and Harrodian are probably the first schools you’d arrive at that have them.
Barnes is home to the Barn Elms Sports Centre and Bank of England Sports Grounds, where many schools share the facilities. And then there’s Richmond Park.
These Barnes and Mortlake prep schools have a wide variety of specialist facilities. Particularly Ibstock Place Prep, St Paul’s Juniors, Harrodian Prep and Pre-Prep. In fact, this may well be the best area in southwest London for prep schools with facilities.
That’s not to say that Tower House School doesn’t have specialist facilities. It does, but it has outside space restrictions that the other three preps don’t.
Which school has the widest variety of facilities? That’ll be St Paul’s Juniors. Followed by Ibstock Place Prep, followed by Harrodian. Not only do these preps have their own facilities, they also have access to those used by the senior pupils.
Starting with sports facilities. Tower House has an Astro play area and a multi-purpose hall. It makes use of community facilities to fulfill its sports curriculum. The Harrodian also has grass playing fields, an outdoor pool, squash, tennis and netball courts. Ibstock Place School also has an indoor pool and a sports hall. St Paul’s School tops all of those with a fencing salle and a dojo. A rare sports facility indeed.
As for arts facilities, Tower House School has an art/DT room, music teaching and practice rooms and a hall for performances. Pupils at Ibstock Place Prep and Harrodian share grander versions of these as well as dance and drama studios with older pupils. St Paul’s Juniors has each of these arts facilities, and a 350-seat hall for the use of Junior School pupils. And there is use of the main school’s concert hall.
The variety of academic learning facilities is fairly similar between the four prep schools. Each has an outdoor learning space, computer suite, library, science lab, laptops/tablets in the classroom, and access to DT facilities. Whereas three of the preps mostly have their own academic facilities, Harrodian’s are shared with the seniors.
Computing and remote learning
As well as computer suites for teaching computing skills, or classroom/library devices for research and project work, there are also dedicated devices.
During the pandemic, remote teaching, assisted by technology, became a necessity. Blended learning (face to face and online) is now a reality. Perhaps not for the youngest pupils, but certainly for those in Year 3 upwards. As such, schools are starting to issue dedicated St Paul’s Juniors, for example, all pupils from Year 5 upwards have their own iPads. The other three schools provide pooled iPads, Chromebooks, laptops, on an as-needed basis.
Academic curricula
All four of the Barnes and Mortlake independent prep schools offer curricula based on, and augmenting, the National Curriculum. For years 6 to 8 at Tower House and Harrodian, the ISEB Common Entrance Curriculum is also an important guide.
These are quite traditional curricula. More traditional than some curricula in neighbouring areas. The schools all acknowledge the importance of skills development, as well as fact acquisition, but tend to do so within subjects. Engineering from Year 5 at St Paul’s Juniors is an example of this. The three pre-prep divisions teach history and geography via cross-curricular topics. Ibstock Place Prep teaches humanities thematically throughout the school.
Coaching in verbal and non-verbal reasoning isn’t as aggressive as in many schools, perhaps reflecting the nature of destination schools. But it does start in Year 5 or 6, in preparation for the ISEB pre-tests.
To a greater or lesser degree, some pupils at each of these prep schools enter national academic competitions. Usually, it’s part of a ‘gifted and talented’ programme. St Paul’s Juniors has enjoyed some success too, appearing in national finals for chess and maths.
Outdoor learning and trips
All four preps offer plenty of educational trips to support and stimulate their curricula; more than most schools in the neighbouring areas. And there are field, cultural, adventure, sporting and musical residential trips from Year 4 or 5.
Outdoor learning, however, isn’t as prominent in Barnes and Mortlake prep schools, as it is in some other areas.
Foreign language teaching
All four Barnes and Mortlake prep schools teach French from the outset. And they all add Latin from Year 5 or 6.
Whereas St Paul’s Juniors also teaches Greek in Year 8, Harrodian School also offers an Italian or Spanish stream, from Year 7.
Subject specialist teaching
Primary school teachers can, and often do, teach a wide range of subjects to their pupils. Their expertise is in teaching this age group. Prep schools make the case that subject specialists may be better for some subjects. Also, the progression from one to several teachers prepares pupils for teaching in senior schools. How much subject specialist teaching each school offers, and when they offer it, varies.
The four Barnes and Mortlake prep schools offer a similar menu of class-based teaching to Year 3, but with subject specialist teaching in sport, music, languages, and sometimes art and computing.
Ibstock Place specialists also teach dance throughout the school. And science is added to the specialist teaching roster from Year 5.
At St Paul’s Juniors, Tower House, and Harrodian Prep, subject specialists teach most subjects from Year 4 or 5.
Sport at Barnes and Mortlake prep schools
It is in the provision of sports and the arts that private schools excel. In particular, time spent on sport, and lessons dedicated to music, art, drama and sometimes dance set them apart from state schools.
And these four schools are no exception. There are up to five PE/games sessions per week and more than 10% of curriculum time dedicated to sport. They each offer between 10 and 17 different sports through the curriculum and the extra-curriculum. Harrodian Prep and St Paul’s Juniors offer the widest variety of sport.
Facilities, pupil numbers and specialist teaching are the key ingredients for sporting achievement at independent prep schools. These four all turn out representative teams across, at least, the major sports. Teams from Harrodian Prep and St Paul’s Juniors tend to be more competitive.
But only St Paul’s Juniors has regularly appeared in national finals for any sport, and that has been for athletics, cricket, rugby sevens, and swimming.
The arts at Barnes and Mortlake prep schools
Many pupils at Barnes and Mortlake prep schools take part in the creative and performing arts. For a start, they all have curricular art lessons and extra-curricular art activities.
Even the smaller schools have a couple of choirs and a few instrument ensembles. At least half of all pupils learn an instrument outside curricular music and take graded exams. At Tower House School and St Paul’s Juniors, it’s closer to 80% of pupils.
Only Harrodian Prep and St Paul’s Juniors offers drama as a discrete curricular subject. At Tower House School and Ibstock Place Prep drama is part of the co-curriculum. But they all stage musical and dramatic performances and have extra-curricular English Speaking Board and/or LAMDA speech and drama exams.
Dance is an important feature of the Ibstock Place Prep curriculum, and there are lessons for each year group. At Harrodian there’s no curricular dance beyond Year 2, but there is a strong co-curricular dance offer.
There is also a wide range of extra-curricular clubs at all four prep schools. There’s sport, of course. But in addition, they offer between 10 and 20 academic, arts, and hobby clubs per year group, per term. The variety of clubs is widest at Harrodian Prep and St Paul’s Juniors.
Exam results and destination schools
It’s hard to compare these four Barnes and Mortlake prep schools on exam results since they don’t all enter the same comparable national exams.
As for destination schools, most pupils at the three all-through schools move up to their respective senior schools. St Paul’s School is one of the most academically successful schools in the country. The school is usually in the top 10 UK schools for GCSE and A-Level results. Ibstock Place School is usually in the top 100.
Tower House School supports entry to the widest range of destinations; up to 20 different day and boarding schools. It has a good record for winning places at King’s College School Wimbledon and St Paul’s School.
Fees and value for money
For the 2022/23 academic year, Year 6 tuition fees at these prep schools range from £5,300 to £7,350 per term. Fees at Tower House School are the lowest, and those at St Paul’s Juniors are the highest. Year 6 fees at Ibstock Place Prep and Harrodian Prep almost halfway between at £6,400 to £6,600 per term.
| Schoolsmith Score | Tuition Fees v National Average (Years 3-6) | Value for money (rank) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ibstock Place Prep | 81 | +50% | 2 |
| St Paul’s Juniors | 88 | +81% | 4 |
| Harrodian Prep and Pre-Prep | 80 | +63% | 3 |
| Tower House School | 79 | +31% | 1 |
To put these fees into perspective, total tuition fees from Year 3 through to Year 6 are 31%-81% higher than the national average. It’s an expensive are to live, and an expensive area to privately educate your children.
St Paul’s Juniors the highest scoring Barnes and Mortlake prep school. And there is some correlation between fees and Schoolsmith Score. That said, Tower House School offers the best value for money as measured by £/Schoolsmith Score.
What accounts for this difference in fees? In general, it’s location, grounds, facilities, class sizes, staffing, and local demographics. Some of which applies here. Of course, the adage of ‘getting what you pay for’ can also be true, which I hope this note has highlighted. These are all good prep schools, providing a worthy educational experience. But when it comes down to it, what are you prepared to pay for?
See also the best independent prep schools in Hammersmith, Twickenham and Hampton, Richmond and Kew, Putney and Wandsworth, and Wimbledon
Why are these the best independent prep schools in Barnes and Mortlake?
Schools that feature in these notes are those with the highest Schoolsmith Scores, not just in Barnes and Mortlake, but nationwide. This is an objective score that accounts for 50 different aspects of schooling, grouped into 5 broad categories. You can read more about them from the links below, and the Schoolsmith Score here.
- their achievements; academic, sporting and artistic,
- the breadth of the education they offer,
- the quality of teaching,
- their facilities,
- their look and feel.
A quick pause for breath
By now you might be wondering what you should be thinking about when choosing a school? It happens to everyone. Why not try my 7 one minute quizzes for those starting their school search? Wood, trees, and all that…