Aldenham School

Our View

Balance is what you get here – an education and a school life in a balanced and stimulating environment, relaxed, secure and civilised. And in an open and rural-seeming setting that is a barely believable half an hour from London.

Head

Since 2006, Mr James Fowler MA PGCE (mid-forties). Previously deputy head at Highgate, before that head of sixth at Brentwood. He grew up in the area, having attended Merchant Taylors, Northwood, so came with a useful understanding of the neighbourhood and likely clientele. A former choral scholar at New College, Oxford – musicians often make decidedly civilised heads; married with two sons. Impresses immediately in an un-grand way. At ease, clearly highly competent and in tune with his school's very particular and, in this area, rare ethos, steadily building on his popular predecessor's short, but effective, tenure. Candid and expansive – a solid, astute head to whom you'd have no hesitation in handing your children.

Academic Matters

Not for single-minded scholars nor does the head talk about climbing the league tables. When asked whether he is hoping to 'up the academics' he replies, swiftly, 'If you're asking me whether I want to ensure that all pupils here get the very best out of what we provide, of course I do.' Touché. That said, the academics are good and those who want to get to Oxbridge, and have the brains, will do so. But this is not what Aldenham is about. It takes a broad spread of ability – the fact that most enter at an untestably early age and stay the course more or less ensures that. Later arrivals are refugees from more pressured local schools and come not because of any lack of ability, but because they want school to be about more than that. And it is, here.

Classes are small – we saw, in fact, almost nothing but learning in groups – concentrating faces in friendly fives and sixes. Average class size is 20, down to 11 in the sixth. Setting in maths and science. At GCSE, everyone takes a core of English x 2, science x 3, maths, a language, RS, PE and IT, plus options from a predictable list. 65 per cent get A*/B, which is wholly respectable. At A level, a good range of subjects: business and economics popular, as are DT (graphics and resistant materials), media studies, PE, music, music technology and art. In 2008, 43 per cent of exams got A/B. Latin survives, as does German – hooray! Greek can be taken to GCSE.

Around 12 per cent on the learning support register, the vast majority for mild dyspraxia and dyslexia. Two statemented pupils – mild Asperger's – and provides for them sensitively. Excellent learning support area with several little rooms for one to one, much used by the 40-odd overseas pupils who receive EAL help. Praise for provision though head not keen to be known as a school 'for' special needs – which it isn't. More could be done to stretch the most able, as head admits and has plans to do so. Value-added achievement is high and much praise in inspection report for the promotion of independent learning.

Games, Options, the Arts

The real triumph of Aldenham. The pitches, fields, courts, Astroturf and sports facilities here need to be seen. 110 acres of glorious green belt land stretch away, much of them part of the school's playing areas – the rest gently wooded, cottaged or be-cowed in a way that belies the school's actual position inside the M25. Football is main boys' game in the autumn term, for girls netball and hockey in autumn and spring terms. Spring brings hockey for the boys and summer cricket for boys and rounders for girls. Shooting range, cavernous sports hall plus gym, climbing wall – you name it, they've got it, except, yet, for a pool of their own. Lots of options – athletics, tennis, sailing, fives, judo etc ad exhaustionem. Lots of success too, and tours to lovely places – in 2007, 1st XI football to Villareal, in 2008 cricketers to Barbados and a football tour to Deportivo la Coruna. Planning afoot to send girl netballers to Spain soon. CCF returned (after 17 year absence) in 2006 and has become speedily popular, largely because of the trips it offers.

Excellent art – we loved the ceramic skydivers, the Impressionistic line drawings and witty black 'n' red linocut self portraits which greeted us; DT work similarly ingenious – metal sculpture, pottery, textiles, graphics; very colourful work everywhere. Photography popular, as is working on the production of sumptuous school magazine. Music thrives and everyone enthuses, especially about 'house music' – clearly an exciting and important annual occasion. Music housed in the school's former chapel, cleverly built around so that odd bits of beamed roof or column find themselves in the middle of practice rooms or the recital hall. Drama housed in theatre opened in 2006 – on a traditional school hall model, ie rectangular, with stage area at one end and stackable raked seating for 130 but allowing for flexible productions and much-enjoyed. Refreshing to see a lively list of recent productions with scarcely a musical among them – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Speed the Plow, Our Country's Good, The Taming of the Shrew – along with The Beggar's Opera and, yes, Grease. Someone here cares about real theatre and gets on with it, inspiring others along the way. Good programme of trips and outside speakers. All this activity means that the day school day ends at 5.30pm.

Background and Atmosphere

Founded by Richard Platt, a brewer, in 1597. Queen Elizabeth I granted him letters patent to build 'the Free Grammar School and Almshouses' at Aldenham for elementary pupils. The Brewers' Company thereafter had a controlling interest in the school and links remain strong. In the nineteenth century, the original Tudor building was demolished and replaced by two new schools – one providing an elementary education for the local population, the other a grammar school for fee paying boarders. What must then have been a remote location and an unpromising one for pupils from all but local farming families is now in prime, protected green belt with the benefit of plenty of well-heeled local villages, prosperous suburbs and satellite towns from which to draw pupils. The school hit a rocky period a decade or two back and some areas of the campus could still do with renovation and upgrading but, for the most part, the school feels comfortable with itself and on an upward curve. The green belt location means that the school is in what the head calls 'a leafy bubble' and cannot grow any bigger, and is all the better for that.

Huge range of architectural styles – everything from the attractive Old School building (Victorian gothic with gables, tower, turret and crenellations), beautiful post-WWI library, splendid panelled dining room, depressing mid-twentieth century municipal style brick and pipework blocks and some sensitive recent building with light, air and heart-gladdening colour, eg languages and media block, 2005. Lots of well-kept gardens – each house has one and the head's garden is a gem. A rather extraordinary chapel – crematorium-like on the outside, started pre-WWII and finished just after – sits over the road that bisects the school. Inside it is vast, white and surprisingly welcoming. School uses it well – eg 'chill-out chapel' – and no-one in the school's mixed population withdraws from services. Stanley Spencer was commissioned to paint altarpieces for the building in the late 1950s but horrified everyone by producing a Crucifixion in which he depicted the cross wedged across Cookham High Street 'like a crashed airliner'.The pile of earth in the foreground with the figure of the fainting virgin lying on top was inspired by the pipe laying operations going on in the High Street. Spencer bemused the boys by telling them, 'I have given the men who are nailing Christ on the cross Brewers' caps, because it is your governors and you who are still nailing Christ to the cross.' The altarpiece was sold to provide much needed funds in the 1990s and was replaced by a large and striking ironwork cross and dove which is somewhat less disturbing.

Girls have been in the sixth form for ages but arrived in the lower forms in 2003. They now make up a fifth of the school but numbers are growing and the aim is that they should be a third of the school by 2013. They have their own house, as have the lower school children – Martineau's – in which years 7 and 8 make a gentle transition from the prep to the senior school, while using all the senior school facilities. Boarding houses not de luxe – no basins in rooms, carpeting scarce in some areas and some lower school rooms for three or four not huge – but good games/commonrooms, the girls have a terrific kitchen, everyone seems comfortable, the sixth form single rooms are good and a programme of renewal and repainting which is brightening things up. Small school in which everyone knows everyone in a supportive, friendly community.

Pastoral Care and Discipline

Strong pastoral care – parents comment that their children feel 'looked after and safe'. 'The staff take immense care – there is always someone my son can go to. The fact that all the children have a place in a boarding house, even if they don't board, makes for a really friendly, family atmosphere.' House tutor and/or matron always on duty. 'The staff are wonderfully protective – especially of the girls,' we were told. Few 'incidents' and school takes a 'sensible' attitude to alcohol, eg a little bar in the sixth form 'club' in which they are allowed a couple of beers two nights a week – something they love and wouldn't abuse. Much freedom for boarders to go out at weekends – with permission. Given this freedom, little need to transgress. Boarding is very flexible for those who want it – an excellent resource for families. 'I stay whenever I can,' more than one misty-eyed pupil told us. Food has 'much improved' and looked good to us. Sensible uniform. Lots of democratic consultation – pupils' opinions sought on all manner of subjects and respected. Busy Saturdays and quiet Sundays with extra EAL for overseas boarders who need it. Optional trips and work with a local disadvantaged school at weekends.

Pupils and Parents

Day pupils can sign up to one of seven useful coach routes; most come from north, or north of, London, as far away as Hampstead or within walking distance. Most live within 20 miles. Lots of first-time buyers, lots of busy, professional London parents who like the boarding/day flexibility uniquely on offer here. Around 10 per cent Asian, five per cent Afro-Caribbean British, around 25 per cent Jewish, fewer Muslims; about a third of boarders from Germany, then from China, Korea, Hong Kong and a scattering from elsewhere. School does well to mix everyone up and integrate them. Parents who send their children here do so for positive reasons and have taken the trouble to find a school which promotes a broad curriculum and a breadth of extra-curricular opportunities in a relaxed environment. 'Balanced' is the word we heard most often from staff, pupils and parents. Notable Old Pupils include General Sir Richard Gale, Commander in Chief, British Army of the Rhine, 1952-1956, Jack de Manio, Dale Winton, Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, Karren Brady, three bishops plus a lot of, mostly legal, worthies.

Entrance

Immense care is taken over this. Head meets all outside applicants – parents and children; a huge job. 45 places offered at 11+ for which 130 apply. Those who don't come from the school's onsite prep (see review) try from around 15 local preps, eg St Martin's, Edge Grove, Lochinver, Keble etc. A reference from the pupil's present school is sought and all sit school's own tests in English, maths and reasoning. No CE. If interviewees come along after the tests, head sees them 'blind', ie not knowing how they did. At 13+, around 85 apply for the 25-30 places – around five of those offered places likely to be girls. Around 15 in at sixth – many from overseas but must be in tune with what the school is about and achieve 5+ C+ at GCSE.

Exit

Around 15 leave after GCSEs – some to schools/colleges nearer home, some to the state sector, a few to employment. Most stay on and leave for a range of universities and courses. The occasional Oxbridge entrant, around half to the newer universities to study, eg business and vocation-based courses, the other half to eg Nottingham, Manchester – most, again, to study subjects with a career-orientation rather than an academic basis. A few historians, chemists, archaeologists etc. Some to employment and around 10 per cent to gap years.

Money Matters

Good clutch of scholarships and bursaries – academic, musical, arty, technological and sports. Check with school for details.