WHAT/WHERE?

Occupying a Grade II listed building in the heart of historic Henley, it’d be easy to miss Rupert House School along one of Bell Street’s handsome Georgian terraces. But push open the school’s iconic big blue door and there’s a buzzy prep school behind it which has been going for nearly 100 years. A co-ed day school with 203 pupils aged 3-11, they’re educated across three buildings and grounds behind the Bell Street terrace plus a further sports field, netball and tennis courts, a pavilion and forest school just up the road totalling six acres in all. In addition to this, the school has fantastic relationships within the local community and the use of facilities all over the town, which any other Prep school would struggle to match.

FACILITIES

/SPORT

Rupert House punches well above its weight in sport and has come on leaps and bounds in its reputation for such, in part due to the arrival of former rower Nick Armitage as head in 2020, regularly rubbing shoulders with the local co-ed competition. There’s an all-weather pitch at the far end of the main site, two grass sports fields, netball and tennis courts and a pavilion a few minute’s walk away.

In addition to their own specialist sports teachers, the kids learn rugby from the coaches of the Henley Hawks rugby club and use their full size all-weather pitch, conveniently located alongside RH’s own playing fields. This is used in the autumn term for hockey too (the current Director of Sport is an Olympic bronze medal winning hockey player), with football also played. In spring it’s the turn of netball and rugby then in summer, athletics and cricket are played with some tennis and also watersports in Year 6 – this is Henley, after all. All kids get a chance to try rowing and then there’s splashing about on a paddleboard and kayaking too.

From Year 3 there are sports fixtures, and once again, everyone is involved, so it’s very much a case of having a go, regardless of whether you’re a natural. Cross country running takes place year-round and the school last year launched ‘The Great School Run of Henley’, joined by other local schools for a race around the surrounds of nearby Stonor Park. It also set up a rugby festival to join its existing football event, again inviting local schools to join in. For swimming sessions kids are bussed to the pool at the Henley Leisure Centre or Trinity Trainer pool for the younger ones.

Outside timetabled sports there are clubs offering gymnastics, jazz dance, martial arts and breakdancing among other sports, (two breakdancing camels featured in the Pre-Prep Nativity last year), so there should be no need to cart them off to activities elsewhere, unless you’re nurturing the next big thing in tennis/golf etc and need specialist coaching.

/GENERAL

The site works hard here, with pupils rotating between classrooms, play spaces, the sports pitch and fields, and the outdoor classroom, which are cleverly used to the benefit not just of Rupert House pupils but also neighbouring schools and community groups. Couple that with the school’s use of the town’s rugby pitches, theatre and town hall, and the pupils aren’t left wanting for any facilities they can’t already access.

The prep school block occupies the older original terraced building and is resultingly quirky. There’s a particularly roomy classroom overlooking the back garden with vast sash windows but also smaller third floor rooms overlooking the high street in front of the school.

CREATIVE ARTS

There are three music practice rooms, one of which is sound-proofed and all in high demand given that an impressive 70%+ of pupils here learn at least one instrument or take singing lessons. There are Junior & Prep choirs, a Chamber Choir, parent and staff choir (parent/teacher social interaction is big here – see below), and strings and brass groups, with further music-related clubs like song writing and samba drumming. The house music competition is just one of the opportunities to perform – there’s also an Easter Concert and Christmas Service in town and tea-time informal concerts. Music is taught in both the Pre-Prep and Prep by a specialist teacher in a dedicated classroom that’s adorned with drums and percussion instruments.

The art room is one of the most striking classrooms in the school – a bright and airy loft space that’s bedecked with pupils’ work and stacked on all sides by every material they could want to lay their hands on. With a double lesson set aside each week in here from Year 3 and up I imagine it’s one of the kids’ favourite times of the week. The DT studio is next door and impressively equipped for a school of this size. It was opened last year and still has that spangly new feeling.

Drama is another arena where everyone joins in – no shrinking violets here – and there are weekly lessons for every child. The end of year highlight is a production at Kenton Theatre, just round the corner, for children in Years 3 to 6 where they experience the full pro theatre experience complete with lighting, back stage and miked-up actors.

ACADEMICS

If the academic success of a prep is judged by its pupils getting into their first choice of secondary, then RH succeeds on all fronts. Destination schools include Queen Anne’s Caversham, St Helen & St Katharine, Headington, Abingdon, Leighton Park, The Oratory and The Abbey, with 13+ co-ed schools increasingly making an appearance including Wellington, St Edwards, Harrow and Bradfield, particularly as this year sees Rupert House fully co-ed to Year 6. There’s a 100% success rate in Year 6 students taking the ISEB tests for public schools that start at Year 9, with pupils going onto schools like St Andrews, The Dragon and Lambrook for the intervening two years.

Scholarship rates are impressive – between 13-18 have been awarded annually in previous years, though the focus is very much on all-round achievement. The scholarship boards in the entranceway have been replaced by posters of the previous year’s leavers, each of whom decides what to include on their poster, be it a music exam, scholarship or sporting prowess. With photos alongside each it’s a clever motivational tool for the current cohort.

As for choosing destination schools, this starts in Year 4 and each parent is given time with the Head and Deputy Head Academic as well as invitations to coffee mornings with visiting school heads and a senior schools fair in the hall.

There’s specialist teaching in Games, ICT, Music and French in the Pre-Prep, moving to include all subjects by Year 5 & 6, with Maths and English groups set from part way through Year 5.

PASTORAL CARE

In a school this size there’s no hiding and teachers and support staff tend to be super aware of every child’s ups and downs. For those who aren’t confident at coming forward, the Winnie the Owl system offers badges that can be plucked off classroom walls and handed to a teacher without a word needing to be said. The staff member will then follow it up discreetly and offer some ‘Talk Time’ with one of the mental-health trained staff and possibly Quincy the daschund, who visits twice a week to be a therapy dog, much to the delight of the kids..

Staff wellbeing is also paramount, with weekly staff walks on offer and wellbeing themed events. Last year saw a Glastonbury-themed staff room, and on top of that, ‘Guardian Angel’ teachers regularly anonymously do kind things for another teacher whose name they pick out of a hat.

SEND

The dedicated SEND room is a riot of equipment, games and so forth to help keep fidgety fingers busy or learn in a more hands-on way. When I poked my head round the door it was being used as a ‘talk time’ space with the student chatting away while moulding play dough. This is also the main home for Quincy when he’s visiting.

THE HEAD

Nick Armitage is in his third year of the job and looks right at home in the rowing mecca of Henley. He’s a genial, smiley guy who is unceasingly approachable – just prepare to be chatting for a while because he’s a really passionate advocate of everything that’s going on at RH. His big focus in his tenure so far has been community engagement, a buzzword of so many schools, but the sharing of facilities and joint sports festivals go to show it’s not just lip service and he has been the driving force behind Education Henley, a partnership between all the schools in the local area. He leads his team with a corporate flair, with incentives and wellbeing high on the agenda. Beyond the wellbeing and community focus, his next project is a look at the existing facilities with a view to making more pragmatic use of the compact space, but not, he assures me at the expense of any of the outdoor space on the main site.

LITTLIES

Like the rest of the school, the early years block, for children from ages 3-6 years, is compact but tidy with effective use made of storage to leave an open and airy feel to the classrooms. There’s also a dedicated early years playground and library and a phonics space for small group work, plus each year group has two classrooms.

WRAPAROUND CARE

Breakfast Club is offered from 7.30am on a drop-in basis and costs £5 while after school clubs are a mix of free and paid for clubs that cost £40-80 a term or there’s a free homework club until 5pm.

ISI REPORT

No report since the current Head was installed, but you can see the compliance report from 2020, in which all criteria were met.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

Pupils are not allowed mobile phones in school. Any Year 6 pupils that have one hand them into the office at the start of the day.

TRANSPORT

At the moment one minibus goes out towards Marlow and one towards Shiplake, but these are adaptable depending on demand.

FEES

Positively a steal in Henley! Nursery costs £4,033 a term, Pre-Prep to Year 2 is £4,538 and the Prep costs £5,517.

QUIRKS

Recent comments that came out of a parent forum (there are many throughout the year) included the phrase ‘old fashioned values but moving with the times’. Certainly this seems borne out – traditions like saying grace at lunchtime prevail and there’s a big focus on manners here, with pupils encouraged to shake hands with their last teacher of the day. However, initiatives such as inviting local businesses in for careers and finance guidance at prep level, and having STEAM days with visiting engineers is innovative, as are the events and policies around staff and pupil wellbeing and parent involvement.

Also, the forest school was officially opened after a revamp in September by Ben Fogle who said it was ‘the best forest school he has ever seen’ – it’s certainly larger and better designed than many, with an outdoor classroom, bug hotel, veg beds, fire pit and woodland area. And then there’s the mural of the school in the hallway that offers a version of Where’s Wally?, but it’s ‘Where’s Woodley’ (the popular Head of Maintenance) who is hidden in various locations with his wheelbarrow.

RH prides itself on its involvement with charities and the local community. The children are encouraged to raise money and volunteer their time to a wide range of charities and local causes, making sure they are grounded individuals with an awareness of the world around them. RHS pupils and their families regularly contribute to the local foodbank, and the past two years have helped donate over 200 Easter eggs to children less fortunate than themselves. They are also regular visitors to the local care homes – performing for the residents, reading to them and generally bringing with them a little cheer.

WORD ON THE GROUND

Parents love the tight-knit community of this school from the What’sApp running and swimming group, Rupert’s Troopers (nope, not kidding), to the direct line to the Head, whose door is always open. They also rave about the town location making a trip over to Waitrose easy (many use the store car park for drop-off and pop in after waving off the kids). The PTA is incredibly active and last year paid for the forest school classroom, while this year’s project is a bouldering wall for the playground.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

Rupert House is in great shape, with a 25% growth in pupils in recent years and a full reception class for this September. With 203 pupils and 45 staff, and average class sizes of 14, you know your child is going to get a great deal of attention and arguably a school that doesn’t need to shell out for maintaining acres of facilities can use money more imaginatively for the benefit of its pupils.

GOOD FOR: Kids who want to throw themselves into every aspect of school life, embracing the huge range of academic and extra-curricular opportunities a RH education offers. Every child matters at RH and it has a warm, family-feel where each child is recognised, nurtured and celebrated. Instilling confidence in all its pupils is key and it is one of the school’s key values – alongside courage, creativity and respect – all of which are underpinned by kindness (which is fundamental to the school’s ethos)

NOT FOR: Parents who want a quiet country setting with colonnaded courtyards and grand halls, or those looking for purely an academic hothouse.

Dare to disagree?! Be my guest! There’s an Open Morning on 27 September 2024, where you can find out for yourself. Register your interest by email.

Rupert House, 90 Bell St, Henley-on-Thames RG9 2BN.

Rupert House School, Henley

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