Even if your child’s senior school place is already secured, two more years at prep school can genuinely enrich their education. Between the ages of 11 and 13, children go through significant physical and emotional development, and doing so in the nurturing, smaller environment of a prep school, without the influence of much older teenagers, has real benefits. There’s no need to rush a child into a senior school environment before they’re ready.

For families who have chosen a senior boarding school, boarding at prep school first is a valuable stepping stone. Being among the oldest, most experienced children in the boarding house helps ease the transition into life away from home, before starting senior school boarding from scratch.

Joining Highfield School in Year 7 also means children take on genuine responsibility straight away, rather than waiting until their final years of senior school. Children who joined us in Year 7 have gone on to be successfully appointed to our Pupil Leadership Team. Our Year 8 pupils take on real leadership roles through our Leadership Circles, Peer Listeners, Boarding Prefects and the traditional Head Boy and Head Girl.

Moving straight from Year 6 to senior school often means one set of exams after another, with GCSEs following not long after entrance tests and pre-tests. Two more years at prep school gives children a broader education beyond an exam-focused curriculum.

At Highfield School, we’ve moved to Common Entrance in the core subjects only, giving us something valuable: real space in the curriculum. That space lets us go further than exam preparation and focus on a genuinely future-ready education, built around our Essential Skills Framework. There are eight core competencies – speaking, listening, creativity, problem solving, aiming high, staying positive, leadership and teamwork – woven through every lesson.

In Year 7, pupils explore entrepreneurial skills through our Tenner Challenge, turning a modest £10 into a fundraising venture for one of our school charities, learning how ideas develop into ventures as they collaborate, solve problems and present their thinking with confidence. This culminates in Year 8 with the Independent Project Qualification, a substantial piece of independent research into a subject the child genuinely cares about, now recognised by senior schools as being as important as Common Entrance itself. Three-quarters of our Year 8 pupils achieve a Distinction or Merit in this ISEB externally assessed qualification.

Alongside this, our Keys Diploma gives children recognition for the skills exam results don’t measure, tracking the qualities senior schools and future employers value most, and giving us real evidence to draw on when writing references. Senior schools notice the difference: it shows in how our pupils engage in interviews, contribute in class and take initiative from their very first week. 

For children who didn’t get into their first-choice senior school at 11, or who are still deciding on the right next step, Year 7 entry at a prep school is a genuine option worth considering. It’s just as relevant if your current school ends at Year 6 while your preferred senior school doesn’t take pupils until Year 9, a prep school gives your child a natural, considered bridge between the two.

Our pupils move on to a remarkable breadth of senior schools, 86 different schools over the last five years, and our Head, Suzannah Cryer, has strong personal relationships across the senior school landscape. She takes real care in getting to know each child’s personality and finding the senior school that will suit them best, and is equally skilled at showing senior schools that fit, so a door that closed at 11 may well reopen at 13.

On average we welcome ten new children into Year 7 each year who experience a magical prep school education for a couple of years before they move on.Among our pupils’ top destinations are Marlborough College, Canford School, Cranleigh School, Wellington College, Eton College, Bryanston School, Charterhouse School and Winchester College.