Bruern Abbey Prep School A GSG School

Sports

Unusual sports

Polo

Shooting

What The Good Schools Guide says

Headmaster

Since 2011, John Floyd MA PGCE, previously deputy head and head of SEND at Westminster Choir School and before that, on the coveted Teach First programme in Crown Woods, Eltham, London’s largest state secondary. Born in London, grew up in the Ivory Coast, Holland and New York. Attended Cothill House and Radley; studied geography at Edinburgh. Lives 300 metres from the school with wife, Hen, and their four boys (youngest due to come here) and five dogs.

Since he arrived, he has doubled the size of the school, set up a senior school, manages the Gateway School in Great Missenden, and has plans to open a sister school. But through it all, he knows every boy and their parents. Dyslexic himself, they told us he ‘just gets it’ – a revelation for the vast majority whose harrowing journeys have involved schools that don’t fit, or don’t seem to want, their sons. ‘Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve felt I’ve had to apologise for my son’s behaviour – he’s been on a downward spiral for so many years. But John just immediately understood and valued him,’ said one.

With his boyish looks, quick wit and mild eccentricity, he describes the school as ‘the garage of the prep school world’ – fixing the boys and getting them back on the road. Later turning to another metaphor, he told us the ‘teachers essentially play darts, getting this precise bit of knowledge into this precise bit of the brain and making sure it sticks, as opposed to traditional teachers who take the approach of, “I love history and hope my passion and knowledge for it rubs off”.’ That’s fine and dandy for the neurotypical, he says, ‘but not for our boys who find they talk too long and have forgotten everything by the exam’.

There’s nothing institutional about this school, with its open fires, Turkish rugs, infinite board games and dogs at every turn. Even in the head’s study, we were joined by Spider, the black Lab, and Sage, the spaniel. Boys regularly pop in to walk them or collect their things (a laptop and archery bow during our visit, the latter ‘worth more than my car’, said the head).

Entrance

A mainstream school for boys with dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia, with some who have additional needs, mainly ADHD and mild autism. Around 25 have EHCPs (or are currently applying for one, with school’s help). The head reads EP reports before inviting parents to visit, with suitable children invited back for assessments in maths and English and a sleepover. Boys come from over 110 feeder schools, a few joining in years 3 and 4, but mostly from year 5. Majority join mid-year, with application process sometimes as quick as one week. Not suitable for behavioural problems that could disrupt learning, and the free-range way of life may not suit some autistic boys.

Exit

After Common Entrance, to a variety of independent schools including Bloxham, Bryanston, Bede’s, Shiplake and Sherborne. A handful win scholarships. Some, including any year 8 late joiners, head to the school’s new senior school 25 minutes’ drive away – though head hopes this will never be more than half the leavers. ‘The earlier you are Bruern-ised the less likely you’ll need it later on,’ reckoned one parent.

Our view

A country prep that supports boys with weaker working memories and processing speeds through the Common Entrance, and gets their self-esteem back on track. It achieves this by providing double the amount of English and maths that other schools offer (13 hours of each a week), smaller classes (11 max in lower years, 13 for upper years), a high staff/pupil ratio for the core subjects (two teachers per class) and tailored, therapeutic scaffolding. Plus that all-important fresh air, art, drama, music and fun you’d expect in any prep worth its salt. For many boys, ‘finally not feeling like the odd one out’, as one put it, is also integral to their success here.

The school was founded in 1989 by a successful American lawyer who’d had a rotten time as a neurodiverse student. Offering specialist help in literacy and numeracy, it started life in the original Bruern Abbey 20 miles west, moving to its current lawn-fronted Italianate villa in the Cotswold hamlet of Chesterton in 2000. Owned by the Belleview education group since 2017 (with the site still rented out by the original owner), the school teaches years 3 and 4 together, then older years separately (although some boys may repeat a year). The ability range is wide, with some very sharp brains at the top end, while a few at the lower end may wind up taking foundation GCSEs.

All boys learn touch-typing and work on laptops, where all information is meticulously organised and jam-packed with all the latest dyslexia software. No copying from the board needed here. The laptops we saw in action were full of visuals and broken-down, font-friendly text which boys circled and moved around with their styluses. Both kinaesthetic and outside learning (including forest school in younger years) is common too, eg boys were learning about area and volume by standing on the axes of the football pitch. ‘If you use the traditional means of putting a maths problem or 2D picture on the board, then talking about it, you’ve lost them before you’ve started.’

Most boys learn French and Spanish – although the school is graduating towards Spanish only as it’s ‘phonetically easier’. With MFL often fazing language-challenged children, we were impressed they were studying any at all. ‘Some schools – Teddies, Bryanston and Stowe, for example – won’t take a Bruern boy who doesn’t do a language,’ explains head, though other boys may drop a language if they wish. School says the secret lies in not having to do the ‘yin vs yang’ way of teaching a class where most students are neurotypical and some aren’t. ‘Here, you’re only teaching one type of child so you can spend a whole lesson on five verb endings if that’s what’s needed.’

All maths teachers are dyscalculia trained, and the school coaches all teachers in dyslexia-friendly teaching. Several staff (including head and deputy head) are neurodiverse themselves, which helps with their understanding and empathy. One boy told us, ‘Every single teacher breaks everything down and they don’t move on until they know you’ve got it.’

Lessons never exceed 40 mins (and are shorter at the end of the day), with five-minute ‘brain breaks’ in between. Even weekly chapel is kept under half an hour. ‘Any longer, and you’re wasting everyone’s time.’ The no-homework policy goes down a treat with parents – for many, this is bottle of whisky and handgun territory, says head, who instead stretched Tuesdays to Thursdays to 6.05pm to include supervised independent learning.

We arrived on a Monday morning at the same time as the boys, unmissable in their bright yellow sweatshirts (the Texan founder’s idea, staff told us with a roll of the eyes). As the mothers gathered by the log fire in the great hall for a cuppa and chat, the boys raced past the wide oak staircase for the drawing room, some sitting chatting, others excitedly rolling around the floor. With 23 acres of rolling lawns and woodland to run around in, they knew they’ll get to let off more steam soon enough.

Sport has grown considerably since our last visit, with boys doing games four afternoons a week and playing 60-70 fixtures a year. Football, rugby and cricket are the main sports, ‘though for boys that think rugby is an unreserved horror invented by a god they forgot to worship, they just do something else,’ says head. Parents think they’ve got the balance ‘spot on’. Cross-country, golf, basketball, clay pigeon shooting, boxing and archery all on offer, and boys were being rounded up for polo during our visit. Pitches, courts and a small indoor swimming pool all on site.

All boys get eight lessons of art and DT a week – school says this is the part of their brain that may well wind up making them a living, ‘and anyway, they need creative time to balance the intensive maths and English’. Like most classrooms, the DT workshop (where ball-bearing mazes were being made) and art studio (in the delightfully named Hobbit Hole) are hidden about the grounds in various outbuildings. Newish science lab occupies a converted dairy, complete with central lab bench (‘for collaborative teaching’), telescope and skeleton.

Around 65 per cent learn singing or an instrument – one boy was doing both at once on a grand piano upstairs. Guitar (acoustic, bass and electric) popular (an Ed Sheeran number being strummed during our visit), and a whopping one in five learn the drums (‘must be something to do with the cross-lateral motion and brains of neurodivergent children,’ reckons head). There’s even a bagpipes teacher. School choir but no orchestra. Drama gets thumbs-up from the boys – ‘important for helping with English,’ said one earnestly.

Inspiring approach to food. All cooked by school’s own chef, it is served in the downstairs refectory with a moose head on the wall, where staff and children eat together. We saw boys tucking into everything from poached salmon and salad to rare beef and bean salads chosen from the vast cold buffet, while we joined those tucking into tasty chicken curry. But the twice-weekly formal dinners are the real highlight, where a handful of parents get to chat to teachers over a glass of fizz in the drawing room ready to steal themselves for a candlelit three-course dinner with 100 boys, dressed in their formal uniform (also used on some school trips). ‘Fantastic for teaching table manners and conversation,’ felt a parent.

A strong pastoral approach underscores everything. ‘Without self-esteem you’re nothing, and for many boys that’s pretty shaky when they arrive,’ said deputy head, pastoral. It’s clear boys lap up the nurturing atmosphere, many relieved to be leaving the alpha male, rugger boy world of their last school behind. Years 3-6 get two tutor times a day (partly pastoral, partly reminders – ‘the joys of a weak working memory!’ says head) and building confidence is reinforced through clubs (DJ skills, cooking, judo, chess etc) and trips (eg cricket tour to Sri Lanka, sailing to Isle of Wight, skiing to Norway and Italy, history to Washington, art to Paris, fly fishing in Scotland).

Visiting counsellor, CBT therapist and art therapist (for a drawing and talking group) – and there’s also a visiting OT and speech and language therapist (though less than 15 per cent have speech and language needs), overseen by the two SENCos (the head, plus a full-time position). Two attractive shepherd’s huts in the grounds available for one-to-ones though the drawing room (more space) seemed to be more popular when we visited.

Executive functioning difficulties mean these boys frequently turn up with the wrong stuff, forget schedules and act impulsively. School therefore works on prevention, not punishment, and doesn’t sweat the small stuff. No compromising on bullying, however: ‘We are a school of beta males and a really unkind person could go through them like a hot knife through butter,’ says head. Parents say, ‘You do get calls home, and I know they’ve asked boys to leave.’

Families come from far and wide (but no full-fat boarding, so no international families), notably the home counties, many having rented a second home or moved house for the school. Others have remortgaged their house or called on all their relatives to afford the fees, the head told us nervously.

Boarders

Around half the boys weekly board (Mon-Fri), with 25 or so flexi-boarding one or two nights a week. Many wouldn’t have gone to a boarding school if it weren’t for the need to come here, and the school is flexible in extending try-out periods. Some grumbles from (mainly working) parents that boys can’t return on the Sunday night, but school insists whole weekends at home are key for these boys – and there’s a coach service from central London (with various stops). Other parents come up on a Wednesday afternoon to watch games, join the weekly BBQ (weather permitting) and take them to the local Premier Inn for a night where they ‘decompress’ ready to return the following morning.

High-ceilinged, slightly scruffy dorms all located on the top two floors of the main house, where boys sleep five to 12 – and with far more personalisation than we see in most boys’ schools. In the evenings, boys enjoy the grounds, tea and toast parties, dog walking, film nights etc. Houseparents praised for being ‘caring’ and ‘communicative’. No mobiles, but a few school ‘bricks’ available for boys to call home.

Money matters

Not for the faint of wallet, but there are some bursaries (up to 100 per cent).

The last word

Offers the full country prep experience, plus the targeted maths and English and emphasis on self-esteem that these boys are crying out for. The majority go on to top independent schools, while others opt for softer schools including the new senior school. ‘All schools see my son’s dyslexia, but this one saw his potential too,’ voiced one parent. ‘It’s like they flipped a coin – just unbelievable,’ said another.

Special Education Needs

Bruern Abbey is in so many ways a traditional preparatory school, with its raison d'etre being to prepare boys for Common Entrance to reputable Public Schools. Yet all the boys at Bruern experience some kind of specific learning difficulty, or range of difficulties, to a degree that for confidence to be restored and for academic potential to be fulfilled, they would benefit from small classes, an intensive focus on literacy and numeracy and a genuinely multi-sensory approach to delivering the curriculum, including the use of a personal laptop. Children are taught by trained and experienced 'specialists' in special needs education and by subject teachers who have an on-going, in-service training programme, monitored by the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre, that helps them understand the difficulties encountered by the dyslexic or dyspraxic child. Nov 09.

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