Address & Additional Information:
The Old Vicarage
127 Herne Hill
London SE24 9LY
T: 020 7274 6336
Comments:
The largest independent pre-school in the UK, the school is known to be one of the best feeder schools in Dulwich. It opened in 1976 and is based both in the traditional Victorian Vicarage building and in a modern and bright new build. It is lucky enough to benefit from a wonderful playground (big and astro-turfed with sport and play activities) and an on-site nature area used for Forest School. The largest point of entrance is Kindergarten (40 places) and these places assigned firstly siblings followed by the date of registration, the informal assessment and the school’s perception of how committed families are to staying long-term (e.g. till 7 years old) Note that to be eligible for assessment for Kindergarten at least one parent must have attended a Kindergarten information session. The school expanded their building and playground facilities in 2016 and can now offers healthy hot lunches (prepared onsite) as well as an indoor hall for drama, PE and assemblies. This school gets excellent exit results but is not a hot house environment with limited homework till year 2 and only 20 minutes a day at that. There are very high staffing ratios (up to 4 in a class of 20 pupils) and music and drama are considered a particular strength. Parents praise the amazing concerts and the range of specialist visiting teachers for individual music tuition. There is an impressive range of after school clubs too including gardening, drama, Lego, yoga, ballet, hip hop, football, art and cycling club.
