London Prep Schools: A Parent's Guide to the Best 11+ and 13+ Feeders

There is no single best London prep school. There is only the one whose exit route actually matches where you want your child to end up, and working that out is most of the job. Some, like Thomas's Battersea and Falkner House, are built around 11+ entry into day senior schools such as St Paul's Girls' School and Godolphin and Latymer. Others, like Sussex House and Broomwood Prep, Boys, exist for 13+ Common Entrance and scholarship exams that feed boarding schools like Eton, Harrow and Winchester. A few, St Paul's Juniors and Highgate Junior School among them, are simply the junior department of one specific senior school, so most pupils progress with no competitive exam at all. This guide covers ten well regarded London preps by area: what each one actually prepares your child for, what it costs now that VAT applies to fees, and how the 7+, 11+ and 13+ system fits together, so you can judge which route suits your family rather than just which name you already recognise.

What a London prep school actually is

A preparatory school, usually just called a prep school, is a fee charging independent school that historically took children from around age seven or eight up to thirteen, with one explicit job: getting them ready for entry to an independent senior school. Many London schools now bolt on a pre-prep department too, covering roughly age three or four up to seven or eight through Nursery, Reception and Years 1 to 2, so one school can carry a child right through to age eleven or thirteen. Thomas's Battersea and The Hall School, Hampstead both work this way, spanning three or four to thirteen on a single site.

Worth being clear on a related but different category: the junior department of a senior school. St Paul's Juniors and Highgate Junior School are prep schools in what they do, preparing children academically through to eleven or thirteen, but their pupils move on to St Paul's School and Highgate Senior School with no separate competitive entrance exam, as long as normal academic progress continues. That is a genuinely different proposition from a standalone prep like Sussex House or Falkner House, whose leavers sit competitive entrance exams for a whole spread of different senior schools each year.

The 7+, 11+ and 13+ pipeline explained

London prep schools sit inside a pipeline with several entry and exit points, so it helps to know which stage you are actually planning for. Entry at seven or eight, often called 7+ or 8+, is when children move from a pre-prep or primary school into a standalone prep, assessed by that prep's own entrance test.

11+ is the dominant entry point into many London day senior schools. It is sat in the autumn of Year 6, with results known before Year 7 starts, and it is the main exit route for co-ed and girls' preps focused on day schools, such as Thomas's, Falkner House and Bute House.

13+ is the traditional route into boarding and other senior public schools such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Wellington, Marlborough and Tonbridge. It runs through 13+ Common Entrance, a set of ISEB written exams sat in Year 8, but the real decision point has increasingly shifted earlier, to the ISEB Common Pre-Test: an online adaptive assessment in English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning taken in Year 6 or 7. Many senior schools now use the pre-test to make conditional offers well ahead of Common Entrance, so the Year 8 exams end up confirming a place that has already been secured rather than deciding it. Preps geared towards this route, Sussex House and Broomwood Prep, Boys among them, treat Year 8 as a dedicated Common Entrance and scholarship year.

What fees look like now VAT applies

From 1 January 2025, UK independent school fees became subject to standard rate VAT at 20 percent for the first time. Many schools absorbed part of that increase, so the rise most parents actually saw was closer to 10 to 15 percent than the full 20. Working from fee schedules published by the schools themselves for 2025/26 and 2026/27, here is what current termly fees, VAT included, look like at some of London's better known preps.

Sussex House sits at the top of this range, which fits its small class sizes and its record of sending boys to a small group of highly selective senior schools, both boarding names like Eton and Winchester and day schools like Westminster and St Paul's, rather than a boarding only intake. These figures come straight from the schools' own fee pages rather than third party estimates, so treat any other number you see quoted for a different London prep as something to check directly with that school before you rely on it.

South west London: Wandsworth's two big names

Thomas's Battersea, in Wandsworth, is a co-ed school for ages three to thirteen and part of the wider four school Thomas's group, which also runs Clapham, Fulham and Kensington sites educating over 2,000 pupils in total. Most Battersea pupils either move on at 11+ into major London day schools, or stay through to Year 8 and sit 13+ Common Entrance and scholarship papers for traditional boarding schools, with named destinations including Eton, Harrow, St Paul's, Wellington, Wycombe Abbey and Benenden. Across the Thomas's group, the school cites a near total Common Entrance pass rate and over 30 scholarships a year, and at Battersea itself around 10 to 20 percent of pupils win an award or scholarship in a given year.

A short walk away on Wandsworth Common is Broomwood Prep, Boys, a boys' school for ages seven to thirteen that traded under the name Northcote Lodge until September 2023, when it was brought under the unified Broomwood brand alongside Broomwood Hall. It is firmly a 13+ school, sending most leavers to around 40 different boarding schools. Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse, Marlborough, Tonbridge, Wellington, Bradfield and Cranleigh together account for roughly 60 percent of leavers, with day schools like Dulwich College, Alleyn's and Whitgift taking the rest. In 2025 its leavers won 39 scholarships, following 42 the year before among 103 leavers, over half of them academic.

Chelsea, South Kensington and Marylebone: three strong single sex preps

Sussex House School, on Cadogan Square in Chelsea, is a boys' school for ages eight to thirteen with one of the strongest 13+ Common Entrance and scholarship records among Kensington and Chelsea private schools. Over the past five years its top four destination schools have been Eton (32 boys), Westminster (25), St Paul's (18) and Winchester (16), and in any given year around 80 percent of leavers go to one of those four plus KCS Wimbledon. Class sizes average around 17, which sits alongside its position as one of the higher fee London day preps.

Falkner House, in South Kensington, takes girls from age four to eleven, with a co-ed nursery from age two. Around 50 percent of leavers win an academic award or scholarship. Roughly 85 percent go on to day schools and 15 percent to boarding: of the day school leavers, 36 percent go to St Paul's Girls', 25 percent to Godolphin and Latymer and 10 percent to Latymer Upper, with smaller numbers to Francis Holland and Putney High, while close to half of boarders go on to Wycombe Abbey. Recent leavers have also gone to Cheltenham Ladies' College and Marlborough College.

Wetherby Prep School, based in Marylebone with a linked pre-prep in Notting Hill Gate, takes boys from age four to thirteen. It is best known as the prep school Prince William attended, and its leavers go on to top boarding and day senior schools including Eton, Harrow and Winchester College. The Wetherby group also now runs a linked co-ed Wetherby Senior School in Marylebone as a further pathway of its own, though the detail on its scale is still settling and worth checking directly with the school.

West London's near guaranteed feeders

St Paul's Juniors, on Lonsdale Road in Barnes and formerly known as Colet Court, is the official junior department of St Paul's School and takes boys from age seven to thirteen, with entry by exam at seven, eight and eleven. What sets it apart is that its pupils then progress to St Paul's School itself at thirteen without sitting a further competitive entrance exam, provided they keep making normal academic progress. That makes it less a feeder school in the open market sense and more a guaranteed pathway, genuinely different from every other school on this list.

Bute House Preparatory School for Girls, in Hammersmith, takes girls only from age four to eleven and sits under the same Worshipful Company of Mercers trusteeship as St Paul's Girls' School, though there is no formal affiliation between the two schools. Even without that formal link, Bute House is widely recognised as St Paul's Girls' leading feeder, with roughly a third of its leavers going on to St Paul's Girls' each year, and the two schools share some sports facilities.

North London: Highgate and Hampstead

Highgate Junior School, in Highgate, is the co-ed junior department, for ages seven to eleven across Years 3 to 6, of the all through Highgate School, which spans age seven to eighteen. Highgate Senior School, the part of the school pupils typically move into at eleven, has over 1,330 pupils on its own, on top of the roughly 440 children in the Junior School, and most Junior School pupils transfer straight into the Senior School rather than competing in the open 11+ market: an internal pipeline much like St Paul's Juniors.

The Hall School, Hampstead, in Camden, is a boys only school spanning age four to thirteen across Junior, Middle and Senior sections. About 75 percent of leavers go on to a London day school and 25 percent board. Over the past five years its most popular destinations have been St Paul's School (27 percent of leavers), Westminster (20 percent), Eton (11 percent), Mill Hill (8 percent), UCS (7 percent), City of London School (6 percent) and Harrow (5 percent), with other leavers going to schools including Merchant Taylors', Habs, Winchester, Tonbridge and Haileybury.

South east London: Dulwich Prep London

Dulwich Prep London, on Alleyn Park in Southwark, takes pupils from age two to thirteen, predominantly boys, with girls' places effectively limited to the nursery and pre-prep stage rather than running as a fully co-ed prep through the older year groups. In September 2025 the school added a senior section allowing pupils to stay to sixteen, though most still leave at the end of Year 8 for 13+ entry. Between 2018 and 2025 its leavers have gone on to more than 50 different senior schools, with 95 percent securing their first choice, and named destinations including Eton, Harrow, St Paul's, Westminster, Winchester, Tonbridge, Wellington, Dulwich College, Brighton College and City of London School. Termly fees for 2026/27, VAT and lunches included, run from £7,175 at Reception up to £10,085 for the oldest year groups.

Comparing the ten schools at a glance

Putting all ten side by side makes the differences in sex, age range and exit route much easier to see than reading through them one at a time.

A couple of patterns jump out. Single sex prep schools dominate the 13+ boarding feeder space, while the co-educational preps and the girls' schools sit closer to the 11+ day school market. And two schools here, St Paul's Juniors and Highgate Junior School, are not really competing for outside senior school places at all, since their pupils progress internally.

Is a London prep school worth it compared to state primary plus tutoring

At £7,000 to £11,500 a term, a London prep school is a five to seven figure decision over its full run, and it buys you two things a state primary generally cannot: a curriculum built explicitly around entrance exam preparation, and a leavers' list that senior school admissions teams recognise on sight. For families who can afford it and are aiming at a specific 13+ boarding school where name recognition helps, that combination is genuinely hard to replicate elsewhere.

But it is not the only route to a strong 11+ outcome, especially if your target is a state grammar school or a London day school with a large state primary intake rather than a boarding school with a long feeder relationship. Plenty of children reach those same senior schools from a state primary through focused, consistent practice at home in the specific skills the 11+ actually tests: verbal reasoning, non verbal reasoning, maths and English comprehension. If a full prep school place is not on the table for your family, our free 11+ practice app is built for exactly that gap, giving your child daily adaptive practice across all four 11+ subjects without a five figure annual fee behind it. Our guide to how the 11+ exam works across different exam boards is worth reading alongside this one if you are still working out which senior schools, and which entry route, actually fit your child.

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Written by Arielle Phoenix SEO & Organic Marketing Manager at Pip

Arielle handles SEO and AEO growth at Pip, with over 10 years in the digital marketing space working with brands and founding her own projects.

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