The best prep schools in Caterham

The four best independent prep schools in or near Caterham are;

They are all day schools, three in Caterham and one three miles away in Chelsham, Warlingham. Their catchment is the leafy commuter towns and villages on the northern fringes of the North Downs. North of the M25, south of Croydon. Why choose these? Because these Caterham prep schools rank in the top 4% of schools in the country, as determined by the Schoolsmith Score.

If you’re putting together a shortlist of schools, this brief note might help you, because it actually compares the schools, just like you do. And there are links throughout to explainer articles (they open new tabs). There is no partner review for state primaries in the same area. Interested parents need to look to Croydon, Purley and Redhill for qualifying schools.

The schools offer some degree of choice, which I’ll expand on below. But, to cut to the chase, the highest scoring Caterham prep school is Caterham Prep. And it’s the most expensive. Double the fees at Essendene Lodge School and Warlingham Park School. And these two offer the best value for money too. So is it a case of you get what you pay for? It depends on what you want, and what’s important to you. I’ve got some quizzes to help you with that. Otherwise, dear reader, read on.

Age range, gender mix, and faith

Many parents don’t get beyond the obvious differences between schools. These are the structural differences such as age range, gender, faith, all-through or not. You may have a preference one way or another, but these aren’t indicators of a better education.

First of all, there’s gender mix. They are all mixed. Caterham Prep, Oakhyrst Grange and Warlingham Parkare close to a 50%/50% boy to girl ratio. Essendene Lodge is nearer 60% boys.

As for age range;

Warlingham Park School; 6 months to 11 years,
Essendene Lodge School; 2 to 11,
Oakhyrst Grange School; 2 to 11,
Caterham Preparatory School; 4 to 11.

Which means that all except Caterham Prep have a nursery or pre-school class, and they all prepare pupils for Year 7 entry to senior school. Caterham Prep stopped its pre-Reception class in September 2022. In a contrasting move, in September 2023 Warlingham Park School opened a day nursery for children 6 months and upwards.

In addition, each of the schools offer wraparound childcare from 7.30/8.15am to 5.30/6.00pm.

As for faith, all four prep schools welcome pupils of all faiths and none. Caterham School has a historic link to the United Reformed Church, and Christian principles inform the school’s values. Warlingham Park School has traditionally been Church of England. However, doctrinal religion has a low profile in all these schools, compared to schools in some other areas.

Standalone preps and all-through schools

Warlingham Park, Essendene Lodge, and Oakhyrst Grange are standalone prep schools. They exist to prepare pupils for entry into a range of schools at the end of Year 6. The benefit being that choice of destination is more informed in later prep years than in Nursery or Reception.

Caterham Prep, on the other hand, is a junior department of an all-through boarding school to age 18; Caterham School. Here, the curriculum is geared towards preparing the pupil for moving up into the senior school, rather than transferring to another school. And pupils are expected to make that transition. Which brings a benefit of a stress-free Year 6 for pupils, and parents. The school might also argue that teaching time can be diverted to activities more beneficial than exam preparation.

Academic selection and inspections

Warlingham Park, Essendene Lodge, and Oakhyrst Grange are not academically selective, operating a waiting-list admissions procedure. Caterham Prep is academically selective, with age-appropriate assessments as part of its admissions processes.

The degree of academic selectivity can dictate the pace of lessons. It can also be a prime determinant of academic outcomes; smarter pupils get better results. But not always. Demographics and, dare I mention, teaching, influence academic outcomes too.

ISI, the independent schools’ inspector, makes the following observations about pupils’ ability profiles at these Caterham prep schools. Ability profiles at Caterham Prep are ‘above average’, as are those at Oakhyrst Grange, and at Warlingham Park they are ‘broadly average’. Make of that what you will. These descriptions come from the three schools’ submissions to nationally standardised tests. The ability profiles of pupils at Essendene Lodge are ‘average’, but by the school’s own assessment.

The most recent ISI inspections for Caterham Prep and Essendene Lodge School were ‘Excellent’ across all areas. Those for Oakhyrst Grange and Warlingham Park Schools were ‘Good’.

Buildings and grounds

The choice of school setting is either a converted period house or more recent purpose-built facilities. Essendene Lodge School, for example, is based in post-war buildings in a residential housing estate. Warlingham Park School occupies a mix of recent, functional buildings and a Victorian school building in a few acres of field and woodland.

Oakhyrst Grange occupies a converted Victorian house in five acres on a wooded residential road. And Caterham Prep occupies two large Edwardian buildings, amongst more recent additions, in the 200 acre campus of the senior school.

Class sizes and classes per year

The size of a school can influence the ‘feel’ of a school, as well as the extensiveness and variety of facilities. In Caterham and Warlingham, three of the schools are one class per year;

1 class per year; Warlingham Park School, Oakhyrst Grange School, and Essendene Lodge School,
2 classes per year; Caterham Preparatory School.

Average class sizes at Caterham prep schools are quite different, ranging from 8 to 21 pupils. Classes at Warlingham Park School are very small, currently averaging 8 pupils per class, down from a five-year average of 10-12. There have been mixed-age classes in the past, and at this average class size (and fees) mixed-age classes are again a possibility. Classes at Essendene Lodge average 11-12 pupils, also decreasing. At Oakhyrst Grange and Caterham Prep class sizes usually average 19 to 20 pupils. However, classes at Caterham Prep are edging closer to 21 pupils.

Facilities at Caterham prep schools

Each of these Caterham prep schools have some specialist facilities. And, not to put too fine a point on it, Caterham Prep has the widest range. Some of those are exclusively for the prep pupils. Others, such as indoor 25m swimming pool, double size sports hall, floodlit Astroturf, playing fields, 5 netball courts, tennis courts, Centre for Performing Arts, are shared with the seniors.

On the end of the spectrum, Essendene Lodge School has the narrowest range of specialist facilities. By virtue of its location, facilities are limited to playgrounds, a school hall, a library and widespread IT equipment. It provides its broad curriculum by using community facilities.

Otherwise, starting with sports facilities, Oakhyrst Grange School has a full range; an indoor pool, multi-purpose hall, all-weather court and grass pitches. Warlingham Park School has a similar range, minus the pool, but with an extra hall.

As for arts facilities, Caterham Prep has its own (unshared) art room, music room, music tech room cum lab, and assembly hall. Warlingham Park School has two music rooms, an art/science room, and two halls. And Oakhyrst Grange also has an art room, a hall, and a music room.

A comparison of the range of academic learning facilities follows a similar pattern. Oakhyrst Grange has a library, computer suite, learning support room, and outdoor learning area. Warlingham Park School has two additional food tech/science rooms. Caterham Prep also has its own science lab and DT room with 3D printer.

Computing and remote learning

As well as computer suites for teaching computing skills, or classroom/library devices for research and project work, there are also dedicated devices.

During the pandemic, remote teaching, assisted by technology, became a necessity. Blended learning (face to face and online) is now a reality. Perhaps not for the youngest pupils, but certainly for those in Year 3 upwards. As such, schools are starting to issue dedicated devices to their pupils. At Essendene Lodge pupils have their own iPad from Reception. At Caterham Prep it’s from Year 5. The other two schools provide pooled iPads, Chromebooks, and laptops, on an as-needed basis.

Academic curricula

All four of the Caterham independent prep schools offer curricula based on, and augmenting, the National Curriculum.

They all acknowledge the importance of skills development, as well as fact acquisition. However, they all lean towards fact acquisition and teaching subjects separately. The typical exception is thematic topics for the humanities topics up to Year 2. Essendene Lodge also links the humanities subjects through to Year 6.

At Caterham Prep, more subjects are linked up to Year 2 after which there is a shift to discrete subject teaching. However, the school has an innovative ‘Global Citizenship’ programme to link geography and history into promote international awareness and responsibility. In addition, computing taught as ‘Digital Innovation’, promoting creativity over passive use of technology. And a ’21st Century Skills’ programme in Year 6 incorporates new disciplines including Mandarin.

Given the need to win places at secondary schools, the standalone preps introduce 11+ exam and interview preparation sessions, usually from Year 5. At Essendene Lodge, however, verbal and non-verbal reasoning starts in the summer term of Year 2.

Essendene Lodge and Warlingham Park, are part of the same commercial organisation; The Inspired Learning Group.

Many schools are increasing their attention to pupil wellbeing. Usually, this means more time and topics under the PSHE banner; stress management, mindfulness, online safety, physical and sexual health, etc. These Caterham prep schools are no exception. Caterham Prep, for its considerable efforts, has a Wellbeing Award accreditation from the National Children’s Bureau.

Outdoor learning and trips

All four preps offer plenty of educational trips to support and stimulate their curricula. And there are adventure residential trips from Year 5 for three of them (Year 6 for Warlingham Park).

Outdoor learning, as a structured programme is a feature for all year groups at Warlingham Park School, and Caterham Prep.

To a greater or lesser degree, some pupils at each of these prep schools enter national academic competitions. Usually, it’s part of a ‘gifted and talented’ programme.

Foreign language teaching

All four Caterham prep schools teach French from Nursery or Reception. It isn’t a great area for variety of languages, and they have pared back over the last couple of years. Essendene Lodge used to offer German, in addition, and Caterham Prep used to offer Spanish.

Subject specialist teaching

Primary school teachers can, and often do, teach a wide range of subjects to their pupils. Their expertise is in teaching this age group. Prep schools make the case that subject specialists may be better for some subjects. Also, the progression from one to several teachers prepares pupils for teaching in senior schools. How much subject specialist teaching each school offers, and when they offer it, varies.

The three standalone Caterham prep schools offer a similar menu of class-based teaching with subject specialist teaching in sport, music, languages, and sometimes art and computing.

Caterham Prep follows a similar model to Year 2, then exposes its pupils to specialist teaching for nearly all subjects from Year 3, except maths and English. From Year 5 all subjects are taught by subject specialists.

Sport at Caterham prep schools

It is in the provision of sports and the arts that private schools excel. In particular, time spent on sport, and lessons dedicated to music, art, drama and sometimes dance set them apart from state schools.

And these four schools are no exception. At least two PE/games sessions per week and 10% of curriculum time dedicated to sport. They each offer between 12 and 16 different sports through the curriculum and the extra-curriculum. Caterham Prep offers the most sports.

Facilities, pupil numbers and specialist teaching are the key ingredients for sporting achievement at independent prep schools. These four all turn out representative teams across, at least, the major sports. Teams from Caterham Prep tend to be more competitive. In fact, Caterham Prep is the only one of the four to appear in national finals for any sport, and that was for netball.

The arts at Caterham prep schools

The arts thrive in Caterham prep schools. For a start, they all have curricular art lessons and extra-curricular art activities.

Each one has at least a couple of choirs and an instrument ensemble or two. Many pupils learn an instrument outside curricular music and take graded exams. At Caterham Prep, up to 80% of pupils learn a musical instrument. It also has four choirs and as many as 10 instrument ensembles.

Only Essendene Lodge School offers drama as a discrete curricular subject. But all these Caterham prep schools stage musical and dramatic performances and have extra-curricular English Speaking Board and/or LAMDA speech and drama exams.

Dance doesn’t feature on the curricula beyond Year 2 at any of the schools, and only then as part of the PE curriculum. But there is extra-curricular dance at all of them.

There is also a range of extra-curricular clubs at all four prep schools. There’s sport, of course. But in addition, Essendene Lodge, Oakhyrst Grange and Warlingham Park all offer around seven or eight academic, arts, and hobby clubs per year group, per term. At Caterham Prep the number is closer to 15.

Exam results and destination schools

It’s hard to compare these four Caterham prep schools on exam results since they don’t all enter the same comparable national exams.

As for destination schools, there are some differences between the four.

Pupils at Caterham Prep, have the narrowest exit path; nearly all move up to the senior school. Caterham Prep is usually in the top 6-7% of UK independent schools by A Level and GCSE results

Pupils from Oakhyrst Grange, Warlingham Park, and Essendene Lodge are geared up to win places to one of the three Sutton grammar schools or a local independent day school. Some move on to local comprehensive schools. Results for Warlingham Park, and Essendene Lodge can be quite variable by year. Pupils from Oakhyrst Grange are more consistent at winning places at independent schools. In fact, an average of 90% of pupils win places at Caterham School, Whitgift, Dunottar, Woldingham, and Reigate Grammar Schools every year.

Fees and value for money

For the 2022/23 academic year, Year 6 tuition fees at these prep schools range from around £2,800 to £5,600 per term. Fees at Caterham Prep are the highest. Fees at Essendene Lodge and Warlingham Park are the lowest, at half that. Oakhyrst Grange charges around £3,300 per term in Year 6, so closer to the bottom end of the range. The difference between the highest and lowest fees comes to £8,400 per year, excluding lunch and extras such as residential trips.

	Schoolsmith Score	Tuition Fees v National Average (Years 1-6)	Value for money (rank)
Caterham Preparatory School	86	+23%	4
Essendene Lodge School	77	-31%	2
Oakhyrst Grange School	78	-17%	3
Warlingham Park School	77	-30%	1

To put these fees into a national perspective, total tuition fees from Year 1 through to Year 6 at Caterham Prep are 23% higher than the national average. Fees at Oakhyrst Grange, however, are 17% lower, and those at Essendene Lodge and Warlingham Park are 31% and 30% lower, respectively. Fees are comparatively low in this area.

Caterham Prep is the highest scoring Caterham school. And there is some correlation between fees and Schoolsmith Score. The highest scoring school has the highest fees. And the two schools with the lowest fees have the lowest scores. Warlingham Park and Essendene Lodge Schools offer the best value for money as measured by £/Schoolsmith Score.

What accounts for this difference in fees? In general, it’s location, grounds, facilities, class sizes, staffing, and local demographics. Some of which applies here. Of course, the adage of ‘getting what you pay for’ can also be true, which I hope this note has highlighted. These are all good prep schools, providing a worthy educational experience. But when it comes down to it, what you are prepared to pay for?

See also the best independent prep schools in Sutton, Croydon, Purley, Dorking, and Reigate and Redhill

Why are these the best independent prep schools in Caterham?

Schools that feature in these notes are those with the highest Schoolsmith Scores, not just in Caterham, but nationwide. This is an objective score that accounts for 50 different aspects of schooling, grouped into 5 broad categories. You can read more about them from the links below, and the Schoolsmith Score here.

their achievements; academic, sporting and artistic,
the breadth of the education they offer,
the quality of teaching,
their facilities,
their look and feel.

A quick pause for breath

By now you might be wondering what you should be thinking about when choosing a school? It happens to everyone. Why not try my 7 one minute quizzes for those starting their school search? Wood, trees, and all that…