Profile: Hill House International Junior School is one of London’s larger prep schools with around 500 pupils located in five annexes in the Knightsbridge and Chelsea area. The Reception children are located in Flood Street in Chelsea. Hill House is a family-run co-educational school for children aged 4 to 13 years. Prince Charles famously attended the school in the 1950s before moving on to Gordonstoun. The school was originally founded in Switzerland in 1949 and has an annex in Switzerland that pupils use for music as well as mountaineering and skiing trips in summer and winter respectively. The school takes music and the arts very seriously and children do sports every day. You might see them out running around the track on Duke of York Square in their distinctive uniforms.
The day is structured differently from most other London pre-preps in that music, arts and games are all part of the school day, there are no additional afterschool clubs, except for Friday afternoons as the school day finishes at noon on Fridays (at 12.30pm in Reception, 1.15pm for the children in Senior School). The student body is roughly 50% British, 50% international. According to current parents, even many of the teachers come from all over the world. It is a welcoming international school popular with families moving to London.
The school is more traditional in its methods than most other London prep schools, with minimal use of ICT and many pen and paper tasks, especially as children move up the school and are prepared for senior school exams via worksheets and practicing verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers. The school charges among the lowest fees of any Central London prep school, which has made it very popular over the last years.
Admissions: Admission at Hill House is non-selective and is done on a first come first served basis. There is no online Registration form, and parents can come by the school any day of the week between 8.30 and 9am to be shown around the school by a couple of current pupils who are assigned to wait for visitors at these times. Following the tour, you will have the chance to speak to the Headmaster or the Director of Admisssions to enroll your child. As London prep schools go, this is an incredibly straight forward process and it is great to have a place secured to minimise future worries about assessments at your other preferred schools.
Exit Results: The full list of senior school placements are listed here, and they show a wide variety of senior school destinations. Among girls, Godolphin & Latymer, City and Francis Holland are popular destination schools. For boys, Dulwich College, Wetherby Prep and St Paul’s School are common destinations. The school has particularly strong links to leading boarding schools, such as Eton College, Brighton College, Sevenoaks, Downe House, Benenden to name a few.
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I taught at Hill House in 1985/86 in the Pre-prep section, where I was ‘maths’ teacher to the 5-year olds. It was a wonderful and inspiring experience. I am planning to pop in when I come to London in March – I can’t wait to see if the children still walk in paairs to the Duke of Yorks Field.