St Catherine's Preparatory School A GSG School

Other features

All-through school (for example 3-18 years). - An all-through school covers junior and senior education. It may start at 3 or 4, or later, and continue through to 16 or 18. Some all-through schools set exams at 11 or 13 that pupils must pass to move on.

What The Good Schools Guide says

Headmistress

Since 2012, Naomi Bartholomew MA BEd Cantab, previously deputy head and before that head of English at Yately Manor. Educated at Portsmouth High School and read English and education at Homerton College, Cambridge. Spent two years in south west China with the VSO, then taught in state and independent primary schools.

We meet her in her spacious, homely office which is packed to the brim with children’s art, books and cuddly toys. There are three doorways - one that leads straight into the staff room and another to reception, plus the large glass doors that open out onto prep playground. It is here, in this doorway, that we spot a basket of Paddington Bear paraphernalia. ‘I always put a topical talking point at my playground window to draw the girls over,’ she tells us.

Warm and gentle, yet assuring and astute, she knows every girl personally rather than ‘someone else’s version’. To this end, she has deliberately appointed not one, not two, but three deputies to share the red tape of modern headship. ‘I see myself as a teacher before a head,’ she says citing her own teachers as inspirations who ‘really made a difference in my life’. An English specialist by trade she teaches year 6 study skills and runs the prep’s debating club, which ‘is a lovely way of getting to really know girls and helps when it comes to writing up reports’. She makes a point of contacting every year 7 who has left St Catherine’s to see how they’re settling in senior school at the end of September.

As one of the ‘have it all’ generation of women, she believes it’s her duty to instil a sense of balance, perspective and resilience in her charges: ‘The 24-hour global economy our girls will enter presents both opportunities and challenges. We teach high achieving girls to manage the pressure they put on themselves.’

Staff feel valued by her: ‘She is broad minded and forward thinking and always puts the pupil and their family’s best interests at the heart of every decision.’ ‘She has a great rapport with us all, she’s open and respectful’. Parents describe her as ‘phenomenal’: ‘I highly rate her.’ ‘She always has a smile and time for everybody’. Pupils agree: ‘She is really kind’.

A keen wild swimmer, ISI inspector and governor at another prep in her spare time, she lives locally with her partner.

Entrance

Entry at 4+ involves small group taster day where literacy, numeracy, physical and social skills are assessed through play and observation. Further up, more formal internal assessments for 7+ and 9+ entry plus previous head’s report. Popular with families moving out of London seeking a more rural, ambitious but not sharp elbowed, education.

Exit

Majority (80 per cent in 2023) head straight over the road to the senior school after sitting the 11+ which includes maths, English, science and verbal reasoning. Head has an open conversation with parents at year 5 if it’s necessary to consider options beyond the other side of the street. ‘We don’t believe in closing any doors too early. A lot can change at the top end of prep - lightbulb moments are still happening,’ she explains. Girls who do venture off go mainly to other local girls’ schools that are ‘the right fit for them’. Three to Guildford High in 2023, three to Prior's Field and the occasional one or two to schools like Manor House, Tormead and Bedales. One mother said head’s advice for senior schools was ‘spot on.’ Eight scholarships in 2023.

Our view

St Catherine’s describes itself as ‘a school where girls with dreams become young women with vision’ and indeed the atmosphere when we visit is lively and inspiring.

Our journey begins in the two particularly vibrant reception classes where learning is multi-sensory and free flows onto a dedicated outdoor learning and play area complete with gardening area, sandpit and wooden playhouse. Inside it’s quiet. One girl is tracing numbers with her finger on the interactive whiteboard independently, others are reading with a teacher. Girls can attend weekly ‘Cat Class’ taster sessions in the terms before they officially start in reception and there are also free ‘Baby Cats’ parent and child activity sessions that allow families to ‘get to know the school community’.

Academics build through the prep with, we note, mostly long-term specialist teachers delivering traditional-with-a-twist lessons. Classics and thinking skills (based on De Bono’s Thinking Hats theory) are taught in the upper prep alongside French and Latin. Classrooms are buzzy yet orderly. Girls respectfully listen to each other’s points in a year 5 English lesson, while in the WonderLab - the prep’s dedicated science space - girls are stood on tables dropping spinners with squeals of delight as they learn about air resistance. Science is big here and tested within the 11+.

Homework is set on iPads from year 5 when they are also used in class to research and record activities and share lesson resources. Younger girls utilise the school’s online platform to upload photos and videos for digital show-and-tell sessions. Computing lessons from the off, building skills in coding, online safety, and touch typing. By year 6 they’re designing video games.

Academic mentoring team provides specialist SEN support and more general study assistance for those that might hit ‘bumps in the road’. Fifteen per cent of prep girls receive one-to-one support, half of whom are diagnosed with SEN. School firm believers that diagnosed additional needs have nothing to do with intelligence and should not be a barrier to either success or enjoyment of school life.

Girls appear first and foremost happy. In an array of uniforms from summer dresses, smart pinafores, and PE kits, they skip around the site at ease. Star jumping in the corridors and cartwheeling in the playground. Certificates are awarded in assembly for any and all acts of kindness and we should like to nominate our guides for kindly offering us a much-needed explanation of the year group names (a rather hard-to-follow combination of lower and upper numbers) and in tactfully asking if we could be ‘a bit quicker’ when they realised we were being too slow on our tour. They were charming, unscripted and polite.

At the heart of the school is the house system which provides a pastoral platform from which girls ‘are immediately embraced’ into the school. Together with form teachers, vertical tutor groups, ‘shadows’ and buddies, all girls are known and cared for. One mother said, ‘Their number one priority is the girls’ happiness.’ Littlewood Lodge is a new space dedicated to academic mentoring and growth mindset work. ‘We like to focus on a positive mindset in this school,’ one girl tells us adding, ‘it’s not that we don‘t understand something, it’s that we don’t understand it yet’. Girls we meet delight in sharing the tactics they’ve learnt to overcome friendship issues and how the new buddy bench works; ‘If you’re a bit sad but don’t want to tell anyone, you sit on it, then a playground ambassador will come and help you’. These play buddies cannot be missed with their screaming pink bibs complete with their job title. School’s Christian values run deep, with chapel once a week, although religion is ‘not in your face,’ according to parents.

Large colourful classrooms seem almost too big for the small class sizes and bestow a sense of space beyond the labyrinth of corridors and overlapping buildings that form the campus. The overall impression is a more-homely-than-shiny school environment. One mother said, ‘It’s cosy, just as it should be while the children are still tiny’. Some rooms still have original fireplaces and there’s a quaint cottage garden where girls enjoy gardening club and, our guides reveal, ‘prefects are allowed to read.’ There’s a well-resourced library – fiction one side, non-fiction (and computers) the other. Here, reading challenges are set and book reviews are encouraged. Below in a much smaller lower prep library stories are told – sometimes with the help of puppets which hang from the walls in hand-sewn ‘puppet bags’. Any facilities that appear missing are found over the road at the senior school where prep girls enjoy lunch, sports and swimming. Here too is the beautiful chapel and a most impressive auditorium for performances.

Music, sport and drama appear to be on equal footing. Inclusivity is the name of the game. Everybody can be sure of a sports fixture and line in a production, while graded musicians are celebrated alongside those who just play for fun. Cool music room complete with magnetic music-note board and whole ceiling orchestral mural. String scheme in year 2, and woodwind in year 3, introduce girls to all the usual instruments while the music department actively promotes the ‘rare breeds’ too. Piano remains most popular and by year 6 some 64 per cent of girls are having instrumental lessons of one kind or another within school. Swimming and netball feature heavily – school came third in IAPS U11 netball regionals and does particularly well in district athletics too. Ballet on the curriculum from reception. Timetabled activities are propped up with an extensive co-curricular programme which all girls are strongly encouraged to enjoy, particularly in the upper prep. Parents appreciate pre-school breakfast club and the after-school Cats Club provision which entertains younger girls up to 6pm. In-house dance school is popular offering over 30 co-curricular dance classes a week. Chess too. School’s resident international master runs weekly clubs and school hosts national girls’ chess tournament. While not a school for ‘jazz hands’, a drama lesson we pass by has all pupils engaged and we don’t spot any shrinking violets. Productions are ‘small, cosy and sweet with a village school feel,’ according to one parent though build to a West End proportion finale for the year 6 production.

Located in sleepy Bramley, which emerges just moments from the hustle and bustle of Guildford city centre, the sense of community at St Catherine’s is palpable. It is ‘the village within the village,’ say the school. Most parents are dual income, in traditional professions and - bar the odd grumble about the lack of a sibling discount policy - felt the school provides ‘exceptional value for money’.

The last word

In an area abundant with good girls' prep schools, St Catherine’s ticks the boxes for families looking for a traditional school with educational prowess that will challenge and nurture in equal measure. Very warm – in all the right ways.

Special Education Needs

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