WHAT? WHERE?

Caldicott School is a selective boys’ day and boarding prep school for children 7 -13, nestling next to 220 hectares of ancient forest at Burnham Beeches woodland reserve (used as a film location for two Harry Potter films, fact fans) but less than 10 minutes from the high street of Farnham Royal, and 30 minutes from west London.

With 250 pupils and average class sizes of 15 (maximum 18), Caldicott offers small enough classes to please parents but enough bodies to give boys plenty of friends. A top feeder school to Eton and Harrow, the school is set in 40 acres, with an attractive, if not standout, Victorian mansion at its heart, along with the usual mix of architecture add-ons over time and striking a balance between grandeur (the cricket pitch and view beyond being undeniably spectacular) and more homely or quirky touches that create the character and warmth.

SPORT

More sports fields than 250 boys can handle! There are 15 football/rugby pitches, 11 cricket pitches (with a hybrid strip – go on, look it up), a climbing wall, squash and tennis courts, a huge sports hall, and an outdoor 20m swimming pool that’s recently been given a roof. If you have a sporty child they’re going to be in heaven here, with rugby, football, cricket, basketball, swimming, judo, squash, gymnastics, tennis, athletics plus an introduction to fencing, kayaking, and rowing all on offer. It’s worth noting that in 2019, Caldicott were the overall winners for sporting achievement at the Independent School of the Year Awards and it’s no surprise that over half of the scholarships won by Caldicott pupils for next schools are sporting.

Rugby and cricket battle it out for supremacy at Caldicott, regularly winning competitions in both sports the school boasts an alumni list of top professional players. Recently, they hosted their second ‘National Schools 10s’ rugby tournament which saw nine of the top rugby schools in the country compete at Caldicott in a blockbuster day of fixtures.

All that said, if this all sounds a bit alpha, don’t be put off. Although all pupils play rugby, the boys can choose non-contact if they prefer. And for those boys who don’t make it into the top teams, there’s a ‘sport for all’ philosophy that is very much at play, topped by internal competitions in rugby and cricket with live commentary, loud music and fireworks for the finals.

THE ARTS

Caldicott’s emphasis, historically, has been strongly sporting but modern times require more than the ability to thwack a ball and there’s been plenty of investment in recent years in the arts, with a music IT/recording suite, and the attractive, modern Centenary Hall (opened in 2004, above right), designed for both music and drama productions which houses the school’s Steinway piano.

With a Christian ethos at Caldicott, you won’t be surprised to find chapel featuring strongly in the music here in the weekly services. The Chapel Choir sings at St Marylebone Church in London for the Christmas Carol Service, and there are several other choirs on offer too.

Roughly 72% of the boys learn an instrument at Caldicott, and like most private schools, even the most unusual predilection is catered for (past pupils have learned the bagpipes – let’s hope the rooms are soundproofed). A new Head of Music has just started and as well as offering the usual range of music ensembles such as guitar, school orchestra, Chapel Choir, percussion ensembles, chamber groups and a rock band that has recently formed, there’s also a greater emphasis on Music Tech. No full orchestra is currently offered, but that’s little surprise in a school of 250.

Drama is an area that feels strong at Caldicott – nearly half the boys take LAMDA exams, with a huge 118 pupils gaining distinctions. There’s a staff member dedicated to developing LAMDA further at the school, a great sense of humour in play choices (Grease was the musical last term – apparently Sandy was great) and one of the boys who took me around on my tour, a young professional actor called Toby Woolf who you’ll see in Danny Boyle’s Pistol as the young Steve Jones, was full of praise for the drama here.

With a new Head of Art, the department here is taking even more of a steer towards hands-on learning; paper sculptures are one example of this, with plans to build a new kiln which will allow the boys to work with clay. The Art room is filled with the boys’ best work, aiming to inspire any young budding artists to work hard with the ambition to feature there too one day.

THE SCHOOL

There have been improvements to the boys’ boarding bathrooms, and various ticklings up, but the big development for the school comes in the form of The Caldicott Foundation, established in Nov 20, that aims at investing in projects to transform the site over the next 10 years. See Head below for more info.

ACADEMICS

You don’t become a top Harrow feeder school unless you’ve got the academics right. There’s a 100% pass rate at Common Entrance, and in 2021 Caldicott passed 11 boys to Harrow with Stowe, Eton, Radley, Wellington College, Winchester, and Oundle divvying up much of the rest. No surprise here that Latin and Greek are both on the menu at Caldicott, though there are some additions that feel more modern. TPR (theology, philosophy and religion) has replaced Divinity, Critical thinking has been introduced from the first year (Year 3), and digital literacy has been brought in not as a subject but as a given across all lessons with all boys expecting to master excel, powerpoint and word.

And the cherry on the cake – there’s been a brand new subject created by the school called eTEC – engineering, technology, entrepreneurship and computing. Personally I like seeing entrepreneurship on the curriculum, it shows the school’s desire to stay relevant.

Saturday school is a bone of contention for many parents and Caldicott has changed its structure to accommodate the change in mood, with Years 3 & 4 no longer attending (apparently Monday to Fridays are now a bit more ‘purposeful’ for those years) and flexi boarding an option for children from Y3- 6 before either ‘Day Plus’ (see Boarding below for more info) weekly or full boarding kicks off for Years 7-8.

Extra curricular activities are mindbogglingly diverse here. An impressive 32 options are offered for Spring Term 2022 including judo, climbing, Film Club, Creative Thinking and Entrepreneur Club and boys are encouraged to join in at least two clubs each week.

PASTORAL CARE

This is an area where head Jeremy Banks has excellent form. Pre-Covid at Caldicott he’d already introduced a Quiet Room/Pastoral Hub, a room where boys could take time out, and ‘desensitise’, using various sensory tools like lighting boxes (above), beanbags, and even a tent in which to retreat. Fast forward and there’s a new Deputy Head Pastoral, and the Buckinghamshire Mind programme is in place with a weekly wellbeing survey for all children, a black box for anonymous concerns, and the opportunity for the boys to talk to a ‘Caldicott listener’ – senior pupils who are trained by Bucks Mind to mentor and look out for issues in the younger kids.

If all else fails, there’s also Banks’ black lab Bertie to talk to – a great listener by all accounts.

BOARDING

The USP for Caldicott is its graduated boarding provision. Boys in Y3-6 have flexi boarding options should they wish to take it (including weekly for Y5-6). From September 2024 it will no longer be compulsory for boys to board as they enter Y7, and in 2025 the same will be true for Y8. Instead a range of options will be available, including the new Day Plus offering as well as weekly and full boarding. The boarders are housed on the first floor of the main school, split into three self-contained areas. Years 7 & 8 have their own areas, and the third area houses a mix of Years 3-6.

The boarding rooms are pretty typical of the schools I visit – functional dorms of mostly 4-6 children that won’t make it into a style magazine any time soon (as if the boys care). Common rooms have plenty of natural light, big screens and slouchy sofas. The cleaner comes in on Wednesdays but boys are expected to make their own beds, and there are hotly-contested prizes for the cleanest dorms. As with many boarding schools I visit, the pupils change their boarding buddies each term to avoid cliques, with each boy choosing four friends he’d like to room with, and one of the four guaranteed.

REPORTS

Read the latest ISI report (2017) on Caldicott here and the more recent regulatory report 2021.

TRANSPORT

Minibuses collect boys from Notting Hill, Brook Green, Chiswick, Barnes Bridge and Hammersmith in London and High Wycombe and Marlow in Buckinghamshire, and return them home in the evening, prep done, each morning including Saturdays. There’s been increased interest from the Home Counties for Caldicott from the Cotswolds as well as Hertfordshire, but sorry, no mini buses for you lot yet!

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

‘Hello. It’s me’. Er, sorry Adele, even you can’t get through to Caldicott on mobile. Day pupils and UK-based boarders aren’t allowed phones at all, only international boarders, who must hand phones to Matrons until they need them. There are cute wooden cubicles where kids can call home using phone cards, though.

THE HEAD

Jeremy Banks arrived at Caldicott in 2018, after 12 years at the co-ed prep Beachborough School on the North Bucks/Northants border (five of those years as Head), where he’d made a big impression, not only for improving the academic reputation of the school but also being a very early adopter on pupil mindfulness and wellbeing.

Now into his sixth year at Caldicott, Banks’ ambition of “making it the best prep school in the UK, feeding to the best senior schools in the UK” remains undimmed, though he’s keen to do that via inclusion and participation rather than just “winning stuff”. This is part of his philosophy to keep Caldicott culturally relevant to modern parents whilst celebrating the school’s traditional values. Not an easy marriage, but Banks is having a good stab at it – he’s even made up a word, ‘tradelevant’ (and yes, he hashtags it), to describe Caldicott to parents.

Also worth mentioning that Banks has created a master plan for the further development of the school. The Caldicott Foundation includes practical improvements like putting a new roof on the sports hall, and updating the kitchens, but the really fun bit will be developing the sports pavilion, creating a beautiful piazza and giving eTEC its own building. The other string to the Foundation is more philanthropic – to support fully-funded scholarships and bursaries for boys not otherwise able to attend the school. Currently there are four children with fully-funded places at Caldicott but the idea would be to increase this over to time to around 20 places per year.

QUIRKS

Despite playing on its high-flying tradition (former boys here include Nick Clegg and Andrew Strauss – English eccentrics they are not), humour is a Caldicott ‘core value’, and that is clear to see throughout the school, even the staff who, as you can see, don’t miss an opportunity to go all out for World Book Day every year.

SEND

Caldicott is academically selective , but it does offer in-class support to those with mild SEND needs.

SUSTAINABILTIY

The school has followed through ahead of the target it set and became 100% powered by green energy in 2022, thanks to the hard work of the sustainability committee, made up of boys of different ages, and spearheaded by the Head of Science.

FEES

For a prep school the fees are on the chunky side. Years 3 & 4 day £7,541 per term, Years 5 & 6 day £8,412, Years 5 & 6 boarding £11,162 and Years 7 & 8 boarding £12,402 per term. Flexi boarding is £65-75 per night.

WORD ON THE GROUND

Jeremy Banks’ first year in 2018 was tough, having taken over from a much-loved head of 19 years who died during the handover. However, several years on, the general feeling is that Banks has had a modernising hand, not only on issues of wellbeing but also equipping the children for the real world – robotics and coding are as important as Latin and Greek.

Parents love the family ethos, the boys seems to like Banks, and it’s not regarded as a pretentious school. The boys I talked to described there being loads to do – as is often the case with boarding schools, they saw ‘joiners-in’ enjoying the school more than introverts. School lunches have apparently improved recently. Very little to critique here, except I was told by a few of the boys at the top of the school, who typically end their day at 8pm after prep and activities, that they’d like a bit more free time to unwind.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

Good for: Those looking for top tier next schools. Most boys would enjoy it here I think, there’s strong pastoral care, and parents who like to feel a part in their children’s education will like the family atmosphere. Manners are excellent and taught from the first day here – doors opened, strangers ‘good morning’ed, and plenty of eye contact.

Not for: From a looks point of view, there are more shiny, overtly glamorous prep schools than Caldicott, so if you’re looking for that Downton Abbey moment as you drive up a tree-lined road to the school manor house, you won’t get it here. The cost will clearly exclude many would-be fee-paying parents.

Dare to disagree? Be my guest! See for yourself at the next open morning, taking place on Saturday 12 October 2024.

Caldicott Preparatory School, Crown Lane, Farnham Royal, Bucks SL2 3SL. Tel: 01753 649 300.

Caldicott School, Farnham Royal

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