Best private schools in Chiswick

Chiswick’s prep school landscape is surprisingly sparse given the concentration of lawyers and bankers in the area. Orchard House School and Heathfield House School are the obvious local choices, taking pupils from nursery to 11. OHS is a ‘friendly school with strong academic underpinnings’; Heathfield House is smaller and cheaper, split over two sites near Turnham Green (the green, rather than the tube station – an important distinction when one lives in Chiswick). Leavers from both go on to all the likely names including Latymer Upper School, Notting Hill & Ealing High School, Ibstock Place, Godolphin & Latymer and Kew House School. A few from OHS will move on to board at large independent schools in the home counties.

International School of London offers the IB curriculum to pupils from 3 to 18 for top-end fees in an unlovely location off Gunnersbury Avenue; over 60 nationalities are represented, families appreciate the liberal approach.

Unless we’ve indicated otherwise, none of these assess at 4+ so you’ll need to register early. Ravenscourt Park Preparatory School and Kew Green Prep School are part of the same group as Kew House School; children get automatic places. RPPS is ‘cosy, busy and much-loved’; there’s a school bus from Grove Park to Kew Green Prep, housed in a gorgeous Georgian villa between green, river and Kew Gardens. If you want to get in there before reception, Kew College Prep and Broomfield House both start at 3. Kew College Prep is academic, whilst Broomfield ‘has a golden reputation for nurturing all children’. All send children to the local big hitters at the end of year 6.

Some will take their daughters further into town for Bute House Preparatory School for Girls, Kensington Prep School (actually in Fulham) or Glendower Preparatory School. The latter two are a schlep from Chiswick, but all three promise starry 11-plus results and blue-chip leavers’ destinations like St Paul’s Girls’, Godolphin & Latymer or City of London School for Girls. Bute House’s entry is by ballot at 4+ with sisters taking priority; their 7+ entry point is fiercely contested by the most ambitious girls across west London. Glendower and ‘Ken Prep’ both assess at 4+ and will expect your daughter’s literacy, numeracy and self-management to be coming along nicely.

St James Preparatory School (2 to 11) in west Kensington and King’s House (formerly boys 3 to 13 but now moving to co-ed) in Richmond run minibuses from Chiswick. Lots of outdoor space at King’s House where most pupils stay until year 8, leaving for Hampton, St Paul’s and Ibstock Place; a few board. Girls from St James generally move to the senior school; boys could go to the boys’ senior in Surrey, but lots move on to closer 11+ schools. The school intertwines ‘spiritual thinking with academic success’, our reviewer found, promoting happiness, vegetarianism and the learning of Sanskrit. St Augustine’s Priory (co-ed nursery and then girls 4 to 18) and St Benedict’s School (3 to 18) are both in Ealing, but their Catholic heritage, relatively low fees and all-through offerings bring families from further afield. You needn’t be Catholic, but around half of families are.

Kensington Wade (3 to 11) in Fulham and École Française Jacques Prévert(4 to 11) in Brook Green, provide bilingual teaching in Mandarin and French respectively. Jacques Prévert is a French state school (read: low fees!) delivering the French curriculum; most leavers go to Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle. Kensington Wade offers a British curriculum but pupils are immersed in Mandarin for half the day. There’s not much outdoor space at either.

If your child flies through their first couple of years, the hot tickets at 7+ are St Paul’s Juniors (boys) and Latymer Prep School (co-ed), both of which have their first intake in year 3 and promise a seamless transition to their senior schools. Competition for places at St Paul’s is ‘ferocious’, attracting the ‘brightest and best’ young boys. For the ‘lucky children’ of Latymer Prep, it is ‘the magic bullet to avoiding the hellish pressure of 11+ entry’.

Those who yearn for a more bucolic existence are mini-bused out west to 4-13 preps such as Lambrook School (co-ed), Caldicottor Papplewick School (both boys only), happily reverse commuting. Minibus pick-ups and drop-offs in Bedford Park are a glossy affair. Papplewick boys weekly board from the summer of year 6; Lambrook and Caldicott are flexible. Ultimately, these children are mainly bound for big boarding schools at 13; it would be unusual to come back into the London day scene.

There is no conventional independent senior school in Chiswick. At ArtsEd Day School & Sixth Form (11 to 18), pupils spend 25 per cent of their time on performing arts. A big sixth form, most of whom take a BTEC in acting, dance and musical theatre.

International School of London (3 to 19) offers the IB throughout, with the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) taken instead of GCSEs. Fabulous new sports facilities are a clincher for many families.

There are lots of excellent senior school options doable from Chiswick. Competition for places at the most prestigious is scorching; the 11+ scene in west London is not for the faint-hearted.

St Paul’s School and City of London School offer the crème de la crème of all-boys’ education. Their riverside settings couldn’t be more different: St Paul’s sits amidst 45 acres of pitches in Barnes, while City boys look out over the Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern. Meanwhile, Westminster School is moving towards full co-education in 2030, when competition will presumably go from sky-high to stratospheric.

For the girls, up the road in Hammersmith you’ll find St Paul’s Girls’ School and Godolphin & Latymer School. St Paul’s, which consistently tops national tables, forges ‘its own academic path and does so with joy and creativity’. Godolphin offers IB alongside A level and has unusually decent space for sports. City of London School for Girlsis deemed worth the tube journey to Barbican, such is the quality of teaching once you get there. Notting Hill and Ealing High School (in Ealing, not Notting Hill) and Francis Holland, SW1, also offer selective girls’ education from 11 but without the same battle for places. Indeed, there are super schools around even if your daughter does not live and breathe verbal reasoning: St James Senior Girls’ School and St Augustine’s Priory are less selective, providing quieter and more nurturing environments with their own distinctive values and ethos. School buses run to both from Chiswick.

Though west London continues to be dominated by single-sex schools, parents increasingly want co-ed, upping the competition at those which used to be back-ups. Latymer Upper School gets the best results, attracting the whizziest boys and girls to its rather urban site on King Street. Over Hammersmith Bridge – closed to cars for the foreseeable – you’ll find The Harrodian School, set in the lavish grounds of the former Harrods country club. Meanwhile St Benedict’s School in Ealing draws Catholics and non-Catholics for its down-to-earth feel and fees, not to mention the nifty school bus from Chiswick. Other schools with buses picking up and dropping off in Chiswick include Heathfield School (girls), LVS Ascot, ACS Eghamand ACS Hillingdon, offering the IB and US curricula, also have buses from Chiswick.

For children with specific learning needs such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia, Burlington Houseand Fairley House (5 to 16) are both commutable from Chiswick. Burlington house sixth form on the fringes of Ravenscourt Park offers a range of academic and practical courses extending to Year 14, as well as exciting work placements to boost employability.

Schools specialising in autism include Roehampton Gate School, where most pupils are high functioning; the charity BeyondAutism has Park House School in Wandsworth and Tram House School in Earlsfield, the latter including a sixth form in Roehampton.

Chelsea Hall School (4 to 11)in Earlsfield is a specialist junior school; all pupils have mild to moderate learning needs and many are autistic. Abingdon House Prep (7 to 13) and Abingdon House School and College (6 to 17) also support children with a range of learning differences including specific learning difficulties, ADHD and autism; Centre Academy London(8 to 19), in Battersea, has a similar range of support available. Blossom House near Kingston (3 to 19) is ‘a modified mainstream’ school supporting children who need speech and language therapy, often with autism, with a sister school for 3-16s in Euston.

Ambitious College has a supported provision for 16-25s in Isleworth, on the Pears Campus of West London College, where it offers further education courses and supported internships.