Well-Grounded Ambition – School Profile

In a wonderful symmetry with the Queen’s Platinum jubilee celebrations this summer, Eaton House has discovered photographs in its archives of flag-waving Eaton House boys lining the streets in celebration of the Silver jubilee in 1977. With that continuing spirit of tradition and celebration, the schools continue to flourish and engage with the vast possibilities that an academically ambitious education can bring.

Today, Eaton House The Manor, housed in its impressive Georgian building overlooking Clapham Common, where boys and girls enjoy breaktimes, sports and field studies, offers families a modern traditionalism – a strong and successful school, traditional at its core, with a modern and forward-thinking ethos that pervades the teaching as well as day-to-day life.
Behind the elegant façade, prospective parents are often amazed at the space on the site. A large playground surrounds a beautiful copper beech tree, overhung by a stunning living wall, one product of an early phase of the redevelopment plans which have unfolded over the last decade.

At the very back of the site, just beyond an astroturf used as much for sports classes as it is for playtime and after-school clubs, is the most recently opened purpose-built block which houses the Nursery, dining rooms – which double as event space for fairs and second-hand uniform sales – science labs and a cutting-edge DT lab with state-of-the-art technology including 3D printers. Built with sustainability at its core, the side of the striking building is another living wall.

Sustainability is a key word in the school’s ethos. 70% of the electricity used is generated by solar panels on the roof, there is a rigorous recycling programme with pupils encouraged to divide theirlitter, and a school-wide policy that zero waste goes to landfill. Wellbeing is also at the forefront of an Eaton House education, a fundamental part of all learning and every school day, with Head of Wellbeing, Paula Kearney overseeing the programme. Kindness is one of the principal school mottos and there is a keen awareness among pupils of the importance of talking about any concerns and supporting each other. A happy child is a successful child and this shines through in Eaton House The Manor’s successes. Both boys and girls, taught in separate schools on the same site – ideal for families with sons and daughters looking for single sex education – flourish.

Boys typically move on to their senior schools at 13 following the Pre-Tests for both day and boarding schools at 11, giving them two more years at Eaton House to enjoy being senior boys in an environment they are already so familiar with, time in which to mature and enjoy all that is on offer in music, art, drama and sport, and across the co-curricular. Such a well-rounded education provides an ideal launchpad for senior school in Year 9. Popular destinations among boys are St Paul’s, Westminster, King’s College Wimbledon, Dulwich College, Eton, Tonbridge and Radley.

The Girls’ School, established in 2008, continues to go from strength to strength with an incredible raft of scholarships won through hard work, small class sizes and a far-reaching co-curricular in which girls are taught that the world is their oyster; nothing is out of their reach. In the most recent results, a staggering 30 scholarships were offered to 25 girls.
New headmistress, Claire Fildes, who has just joined the girls’ school from Bute, says, “With such a long history of academic and pastoral excellence and strong tradition, all of which contribute to the pupils’ sense of happiness and belonging, I’m excited by the opportunity to build on those traditions while embracing new, positive and progressive changes.”