Best of Both Worlds – School Profile

Northwood Schools’ Prep offering encompasses Broomwood Hall Lower School (boys and girls aged four to seven), Northcote Lodge (boys aged eight to 13) and Broomwood Hall Upper School (girls aged eight to 13) and all schools live by the same motto, ‘To do your best, to be your best.’

The approach of the schools, which gives families a solid co-educational beginning in the Pre-Prep of Broomwood Hall Lower School, leading into single sex education in the boys’ and girls’ Prep schools, offers the best of both worlds. With a single sex ‘home’ base and day-to-day teaching, there is great collaboration and cooperation between the schools including musical performances, trips, clubs such as debating, social events, masterclasses, sports days, and the sharing of some facilities such as science and DT labs, the cookery school and the art rooms. Broomwood Hall has just organised the first Festival of Mixed-Cricket, which was held at Wellington College. It was a great success and will be repeated in the football arena. It is the ambition of the three Prep schools that each child will give their best through an education that offers great breadth and depth. By instilling in pupils a ‘can-do’ attitude to always try their best, they will go on to achieve in life. Rather than just preparing them for exams and a narrow pathway onto the next phase in their educational journey, an all-encompassing education develops the whole child, and this broader approach really does reap rewards. A happy child succeeds and when the right senior school is chosen for the individual, Northwood Schools will help them get there.
The latest raft of results and destination schools is testament to this: 103 pupils sat 11+ and 13+ exams and gained an amazing 230 offers, which included a total of 26 scholarships – 13 from Northcote Lodge and 13 from Broomwood Hall Upper School, and not just Academic but across Sport, Music, Drama and Art.
Principal Kevin Doble explains, “We can’t underestimate the importance of happiness. A happy child is a successful child and by not teaching ‘to the test’ but enabling pupils to have an education that gives them strong foundations across all aspects of school life, we see great achievements. Happy, vibrant children move onto their chosen senior schools brimming with enthusiasm for learning with a resilience and confidence for whatever lies ahead – and the possibilities are limitless.”
The collaboration and cooperation between the boys’ and girls’ schools means that there is plenty on offer for all pupils as they go through their Prep years linked but separate. Ultimately, many of them might move onto the same co-educational senior schools for which they are well prepared; for those who choose a single sex senior route, they are similarly well-used to this kind of educational format yet will have made lasting friendships and connections which will continue into young adulthood and beyond.
The schools used to be separate and they followed a much more rigid single sex format, but over the years the collaboration has grown, especially in co-curricular areas. Now they are moving to a model where the timetable and curriculum will be shared in part while boys and girls will continue to have their own unique bases in place, providing a bespoke, tailored approach that gives a fully rounded educational experience.