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Best private schools in Canterbury
Best private schools in East Kent coast
Best private schools in Ashford
All the private secondary schools in this area have preps adjoined and this is a very popular option for families wanting consistency and stability. Due to the outstanding state primary schools, these preps tend not to be viewed as a vehicle to grammar but as the start of the journey through private education. Some families, despite being offered a grammar place, stay with what they ‘know and love’ even if they ‘never planned it that way’.
The appeal of the other preps is often their unique identity. One parent reflected that the advantage of independent preps from those adjoined to senior schools is that there is ‘less pressure to join the senior school’ and that ‘they put more effort into the CE and the 11+.’
Overlooking Canterbury, St Edmund’s School provides a friendly and stimulating environment, well-placed next to the university with excellent links to Canterbury and Whitstable. The Junior King's School's beautiful setting and impressive facilities are not window-dressing, the school offers excellent education with music and sport highly regarded. Kent College has an off-site working farm – a very special feature – where from year 4 ‘lambing and grooming’ is on the curriculum along with consistently good value-added results. The only prep not adjoined to a senior school is St Faith’s Prep about 10 miles outside Canterbury - well led, reliable with a nurturing ethos, many leavers go on to grammar schools.
Kent College, St Edmund's School and The King’s School Canterbury: a triumvirate of private education. There’s a mutual respect and dynamic between these three schools but all have their unique take on the private school experience. Historic The King’s School Canterbury is almost 500 years old and very much part of the fabric of the city centre. The ‘penguin’ uniform seems to belong to Canterbury’s narrow, paved streets and pupils achieve excellent A level results. St Edmund's School sits watchfully on top of the hill, undeniably Hogwarts-esque, magic does indeed happen here and the focus is on excellent drama and creative arts. Kent College boasts a working farm, strength in languages and robustness in sport; there is ‘no place for the arrogant’, according to our review.
Best primary schools in Canterbury
Best state secondary schools in Canterbury
Punctuating this long expanse of coast are more fantastic preps. Dover College Prep offers a relaxed and nurturing environment and Northbourne Park excels at providing a unique (hot on languages) and meaningful education within a stunning setting. In Thanet, St Lawrence College Junior School sets a spot-on tone for the well-balanced education many strive for, and Wellesley House with Haddon Dene combines traditional prep education with a forward-thinking mindset.
Dover College works successfully at preparing students for life and offers a larger range of BTECs than you would normally expect from a private school. Children thrive here and ‘find their level’. In Ramsgate, the splendid Virginia-creeper clad St Lawrence College attracts many with its sports excellence programme and two Astros (one with ‘Olympic-standard water base’). Many children travel from further afield than Ramsgate and it has a diverse demographic.
Best primary schools on the East Kent coast
Best state secondary schools on the East Kent coast
Best nurseries on the East Kent coast
The two preps are strong assets. Ashford School Prep (on a different site to the senior school) with its superb facilities, ‘sensitive blend of old and new’ and ‘down to earth’ vibe is understandably very popular, our reviewer noted. The happy family and homely feel of Spring Grove in Wye attracts families from Canterbury, Ashford and the rural communities between.
The ‘forward-thinking’ and ‘unstuffy’ Ashford School produces happy well-rounded students with the whole ‘shebang’ of abilities, reported our reviewer. It’s popular with families from Canterbury, rural Ashford, the Weald and has a strong international contingent.
Best primary schools in Ashford
Best state secondary schools in Ashford
The best private schools in East Kent have a very good reputation for SEND for mild to moderate learning difficulties. All schools reviewed by us are reported to be proactive at identifying issues swiftly and working impactfully to address needs (most notably Dover College). Parents report that regardless of the ethos of the school (highly academic or less), they feel the SEND support is generally excellent. This is very good news.
Cornfields School in Hythe is a small private school for children with severe anxiety and previous exclusion from school, focusing on ‘improving life chances’. Hope View School set in two locations outside Canterbury offers provision for boys with complex needs including ADHD and ASD. With a forest school and DofE programme it aims to equip boys with skills for adulthood. ‘Neuro-Development Therapy’ underpins Great Oaks Small School in Ramsgate whilst Ripplevale School specialises in ASD across three campuses in Broadstairs, Deal and Rochester (see West Kent).
Need help? Perhaps you suspect your child has some learning difficulty and you would like advice on what you should do. Or perhaps it is becoming clear that your child's current school is not working for him or her, and you need help to find a mainstream school which has better SEN provision, or to find a special school which will best cater for your child's area of need. Our SEN consultancy team advises on both special schools, and the mainstream schools with good SEN support, from reception through to the specialist colleges for 19+. Special Educational Needs Index
Find top international, British, IB and American schools in over 40 countries. The Good Schools Guide International publishes impartial and forthright reviews of international schools across the world.
We examined the value-added from KS2 to GCSE for 2022 to see which state selective grammar schools added the most value to their offspring. A note of caution - the more highly selective a grammar school, the less scope there will be to add value.
Grammar schools are state-funded, academically selective senior schools. The education a child receives at grammar school is paid for by the state unlike at private schools which provide education for a fee. There are currently around 163 located in 36 English local authorities, with around 167,000 pupils between them. Northern Ireland has a further 67 grammar schools, but there are none in Wales or Scotland. A word of caution: there are private schools that have the word 'grammar' in their name but this is purely for historical reasons.
At specialist music, dance or performing arts schools, the arts aren't optional extras. They’re intrinsic to the school curriculum. Students are expected to fit in high level training and hours of practice alongside a full academic provision. It's a lot to ask any child to take on, but for those with exceptional performing ability this kind of education can be transformative.