The admissions process

Choosing a school for your child

As a mother myself whose child is going through the London independent school system, I understand that choosing a school for your child is a big decision. My job as Registrar is to make the decision-making process as easy for you as I can, by making sure you have all the information you need to be able to decide whether Prospect House is the right school for your child. You might want to start by calling me and having a chat (I’m on +44 20 8246 4897), you might like me to send you our prospectus, or you might feel that you really want to get on and visit us so you can see us for yourself. Whatever way works best for you, I will do my best to help.

This page sets out the types of visits we offer, lets you download a soft copy of our prospectus (please see below), sets out when and how most children join Prospect House and finally tells you how to apply for a place for your child, if you would like to do so.

Emily Porter, Registrar

Visit us

Open mornings & book a visit

We welcome visits from parents who are considering Prospect House for their child. We hold open events two or three times a year. Our next open event will be for parents of children registered for September 2020 entry and take place on Saturday 10 October from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. (If your child is registered for September 2020 entry already, Emily, our registrar, will be in touch with you about this open event.)

For all other parents, please register for an upcoming tour or contact Emily (at registrar@prospecths.org.uk or by calling 020 8246 4897). Tours start at the Lower School at 76-78 Putney Hill, London SW15 6RB.

For location details and a map see the Contact Us page.

Contact Us

Register for a tour of the school

Prospectus

Our school

The choice of a school is one of the most important decisions parents will take for their child and it has to be right. Our prospectus (available in soft copy here, or in hard copy by emailing the school office at info@prospecths.org.uk) can give you only a flavour of Prospect House. We encourage you to come and see for yourself.

Download our prospectus

Entry points and Occasional Places

Starting at Prospect House School

Children enter the school in the autumn term (starting early in September) unless a place becomes available at other times. They start either in the Nursery aged 3 or into Reception aged 4.

Places occasionally become available for older children. Children starting in the autumn term of the Nursery or Reception are not assessed for entry but children starting at other times are invited for a taster day. For older children going into later year groups, the school will assess your child’s level of attainment (focusing on mathematics, verbal reasoning and English) to determine whether your child will be a good fit for the class. The school may also ask you for current school reports and other information about your child’s aptitude and level of attainment. We seek to build up a good picture of who your child is to help us judge whether your child will be able to fully access the curriculum that the intended class is following.

The final decision whether or not to offer a place always rests with the head.

Breakdown of classes

How to apply

Entrance procedure

There are four steps to our entrance procedure: visit, register your child, receive the offer of a place (if available) and, finally, acceptance of the offer.

If you can, please start by visiting us. You’ll find more information about coming to see Prospect House under the VISIT US section above. You do not need to have visited the school before you register your child (more on registration below). But that said, we do require you to have visited the school before you finally commit to sending your child to us. So please do make time to schedule a visit before the offers of places are sent out.

Once you have decided that Prospect House is the right school for your son or daughter (or think it might be), the next step is to register your child. Registration has two steps: completing the online registration form and paying the registration fee of £100 per child. (Alternatively, you can fill in a hard copy form, available from our registrar, telephone 020 8246 4897, and arrange payment by bank transfer or credit/debit card.) By registering you are formalising your interest in Prospect House and you are securing your child’s position on the waiting list for your chosen start date. We will acknowledge your registration.

Once you’ve registered, the next thing that happens is either that you visit the school (if you didn’t visit before registering) or that you await an offer of a place for your child. Places are offered in registration order with priority given to brothers and sisters of children already at the school.

In terms of timing, when you will receive an offer depends on how long it is before your child is due to start at Prospect House. For those children registered when they are babies for entry into the Nursery (which is most of our entrants), offers of places are sent out by post about 16 months before the child is due to start. For children who are registered closer to their start date, the registrar will let you know when you can expect to receive an offer (subject to a place being available).

When you receive your offer, you will also be given instructions on how to accept the offer. In brief, this will involve:

Returning the acceptance form, agreeing to the terms of the contract with the school.
Making a payment of the amount indicated on the offer letter, which will be equivalent to a term’s fees at the time the offer is sent.
On your child’s first day at Prospect House, paying (via direct debit) the balance of fees for the first term at the rate that then applies, along with a deposit of £2,500. (The school will return the deposit to you when your child leaves Prospect House, so long as the school has received payment of all monies due.)

We have tried to keep the entrance process as straightforward as we can, but we know lots of parents will still have questions about it. We are here to help. If you would like to discuss any aspect of admission, please contact the school’s registrar, Mrs Emily Porter, by emailing registrar@prospecths.org.uk or by calling +44 20 8246 4897.

The above is a summary of our Admissions Policy. You can access the full Admissions Policy (which takes precedence over this summary) via this link:

Admissions Policy

Register Online

Fees

Fees per term from September 2019

	FEES PAYABLE PER TERM*
THE NURSERY
Mornings only (5 mornings each week)	£3,070
Mornings plus optional afternoon attendance:
5 mornings plus 1 afternoon each week	£3,684
5 mornings plus 2 afternoons each week	£4,298
5 mornings plus 3 afternoons each week	£4,912
5 mornings plus 4 afternoons each week	£5,526
5 mornings plus 5 afternoons each week	£6,140
Occasional afternoon attendance	£63
RECEPTION, YEARS 1 AND 2	£6,140
YEARS 3, 4, 5 AND 6	£6,400
Hot lunch or salad, prepared on the premises	Included in the above fees for full-day attendance

*Providing the fees for the term are paid in a single sum on the first day of term, the school allows a discount (reflected in the figures above) against the monthly payment scheme. Otherwise, the fees are payable monthly and the discount is not applied. To find out about paying on a monthly basis, please click here (opens as a PDF).

A deposit of £2,500 is payable upon entry to the school. This is returned when the child leaves the school, subject to the school having received payment of all sums due to it. (In certain very limited circumstances, the deposit is repayable only one term after the child has left the school.)

Charges for optional subjects, clubs etc

MUSIC (INDIVIDUAL LESSONS)
Piano, violin (including Suzuki), viola, cello, guitar, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, euphonium
(ten lessons each of 30 minutes)		£258
PRE-SCHOOL AND AFTER-SCHOOL CLUBS		from £52
SPECIAL NEEDS TUITION Each 35-minute lesson		from £41

NOTE: Fees are inclusive of lunch (except for those children in the Nursery who attend for mornings only) and also mid-morning milk for Nursery children; many other schools charge extra amounts for these items.

Government schemes to help reduce fees

LOCAL AUTHORITY GRANT FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN

If your child is under 5 on 1 September, 1 January or 1 April, for the term beginning in that month you may choose to take advantage of a Local Authority Grant (otherwise known as the Early Education Childcare Place funding or Nursery Education Grant) paid by the local authority to the school. This is attributed to a statutory maximum of 15 hours’ early years education per week. To cover contracted hours in excess of this statutory maximum, parents in receipt of the grant pay the difference between the amount of the grant and the school fees stated above. The grant is £1,004.40 for the Autumn Term 2019. As a service for parents we intend to continue to participate in this scheme for as long as possible, but this is not guaranteed: the regulatory complexity and administrative burden for the school increases periodically and may become too onerous.

CHILDCARE VOUCHERS AND TAX-FREE CHILDCARE

The school accepts most companies’ childcare vouchers. It also accepts payments under the government’s tax-free childcare scheme introduced from September 2017.

To download this information as a PDF, please click here .

Bursaries

House Schools Trust

House Schools Trust is an independent charity that raises funds and awards means-tested scholarships to bright and promising children whose parents would not otherwise be able to consider sending them to an independent fee-paying school. Means-tested scholarships are available, as funds permit, for children aged 7+. Candidates must currently be attending a state school and must have the right to reside in the UK. The scholarships are for places at one of the three schools in the House Schools Group: Prospect House and its sister schools Bassett House in Notting Hill and Orchard House in Chiswick. For more information, please visit houseschoolstrust.org.