St Paul's Cathedral School

St Paul's Cathedral School is a Christian, co-educational community which holds to the values of love, justice, tolerance, respect, honesty, service and trust in its life and practice, to promote positive relationships throughout the school community and where the safety, welfare and emotional well-being of each child is of the utmost importance.

The school aims to instil a love of learning through a broad curriculum. It aims to give each pupil the opportunity to develop intellectually, socially, personally, physically, culturally and spiritually. All pupils are encouraged to work to the best of their ability and to achieve standards of excellence in all of their endeavours.

Through the corporate life of the school, and through good pastoral care, the school encourages the independence of the individual as well as mutual responsibility. It aims to make its pupils aware of the wider community, espouses the democratic process and encourages a close working relationship with parents and guardians.

The Pre-Prep consists of a single form entry for Reception (aged 4+), Year 1 (5+) and Year 2 (6+). Our Reception class follows the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (EYFS) whilst the Year 1 and 2 classes follow guidelines that are laid out in the National Curriculum. We aim to challenge the children in a positive manner and hopefully achieve above the national average results for all our students.This often results in children completing work that is of a level that is in advance of that expected for pupils of their age. We are lucky to have three bright and airy classrooms and an enviable outdoor play area with climbing frames and Wendy houses.The curriculum for Reception children focuses on the seven standards of the prime and specific areas of learning set by the EYFS.

As pupils enter the Prep School in Year 3 (aged 7+), they begin to experience slightly more independence and specialist teaching. In Years 3 and 4 there are two classes and the form room still acts as a base for the students. The Year 3 and 4 staff teach English, Maths, Science and the humanities. These latter two are taught through the International Primary Curriculum (IPC). Pupils continue to keep active through weekly swimming, PE, Dance, Games and Drama lessons with specialist teachers. Art, French and Music are also taught by specialists.From Year 5, there is further emphasis on specialist teaching. Maths and English are taught in sets and some preparation for Verbal and Non-Verbal reasoning begins. Latin is taught for the first time using the Cambridge Latin Course and by exploring Roman Culture and Myths.By Year 7, with the 13+ syllabus well under way, students are taught in sets for Maths, English, Science, French and Latin. Some students will also study Ancient Greek. Art, Music, Drama, PE and Games continue to be an important focus throughout the Prep School and there are many opportunities to explore the talents of individuals.

Homework is set each day: 20 minutes for Years 3 and 4 (one subject); 40 minutes for Year 5; rising to an hour (2 subjects) from Year 6.With our central location, we make much use of the resources London has to offer with many educational trips for each year group, from local art galleries and museums to further afield in Norfolk, Snowdonia, and France.

There are about 34 choristers boarding at the school at any one time. They are housed in a separate building in bright, comfortable dormitories. There are two resident, fully qualified nurses who look after the choristers' health and hygiene and who have flats in the boarding house; other residential staff live adjacent to it. The choristers have their own common room with a snooker table, air hockey, table football, play stations as well as a television. They take all meals in the school dining room.

There has been a song school associated with Saint Paul's Cathedral since its foundation in 604.The Choir School for boy choristers dates from about 1123, when 8 boys in need of alms were provided with a home and education in return for singing the Cathedral Office. Gradually two schools emerged, the Choir School and the Grammar School. For many years they co-existed happily, the choristers graduating to the Grammar school to finish their education, until the latter was re-founded by Dean Colet in 1511 and became Saint Paul's School. (It is now in Barnes and has only a tenuous connection with the Cathedral.)

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the school was more famous for its acting than its singing. The Children of St Paul's had their own resident playwrights, performed regularly at Greenwich Palace before Queen Elizabeth 1 and incurred the wrath of Shakespeare and his professional company just over the river. (In Hamlet he rails against the company of 'little eyases' who are roundly applauded for their histrionic efforts). After the Restoration the choristers enjoyed a somewhat chequered history, but a vigorous campaign by the redoubtable Maria Hackett lasting some sixty years led to the re-establishment of a purpose-built school in Carter Lane to the south-west of the Cathedral in 1874. There it remained until the 1960s, when, under threat of demolition due to a road-widening scheme, it moved to its present site in New Change.