WHAT? WHERE?

The American School in London (ASL) is just that – a US-style educational offering for kids aged 4-18 divided into Lower, Middle and High School on a modern and impressive site in the affluent surrounds of St John’s Wood. In US terminology, it’s a college-preparatory preK-12 day school, if that means anything to you.

It’s far from the school for expats that it once was (on average students are here for seven years but many do the full 12). Yes, it’s like you’ve stepped into a high school movie – lockers line corridors and it’s ‘recess’ over ‘break’ and ‘class’ over ‘subject’ – but there’s an international vibe (76 nationalities are represented). Students – who currently number 1,425 – study at ASL for many reasons – some families prefer the US system (more on that below), others want prep for international/US schools and universities or just don’t like the UK’s love of exams. ASL is selective but with a broad outlook and there is a range of support available (see SEND, below).

FACILITIES

I lived round the corner from ASL for years and had no idea that the campus was tucked away between residential blocks near St John’s Wood tube – and it’s huge. Something of a rabbit warren to the uninitiated, the three parts of the school are separate but share some facilities. The current site dates from 1971 and the school is now in its 74th year, having subsequently added a High School wing, a School Center for Education and the Arts (theatre to you and me) and in 2016, an underground Aquatic & Fitness Center with a 25m pool and dance studio.

ASL was founded in 1951 by Stephen L. Eckard, an American journalist and former teacher living in London, with 13 students taking classes in his Knightsbridge flat. It’s grown a bit since then, but journalism is still big. Should you be nurturing the next Pulitzer Prize winner, they’re well furnished at ASL with two dedicated learning spaces and courses in photojournalism, graphic design, and multimedia and there’s countless publications to hone their craft with broadsheet-level production values – and 135 student journalists to work alongside.

Creation is the remit of the school’s Make, Innovate and Learn Lab (MILL) a massive and bright space that is super versatile. It is used across disciplines for activities like creating models and 3D objects with all the gear you could wish for: 3D printers, sewing machines, wood-working materials, laser cutters, robotics and large-format printers. There’s also modern labs for science and computing with power sockets hanging from the ceiling to allow layout flexibility and many classrooms have internal as well as external windows for maximum light and transparency, keeping everyone on their toes.

Not forgetting good old fashioned books, the school has two libraries – the Lower School one with its cute reading cubbies and 20,000 resources in 50 languages, and the Mellon library, a vast learning space with 24,000 volumes, a board game library, 7 librarians and large tables for quiet study. As for other communal spaces, there’s the odd bench/beanbag station throughout the Middle and High schools and the cafeteria is big, bright and has a big choice including hot meals, salad bar and pasta/Jacket potatoes for the unadventurous. Kids eat in their advisory groups (forms) and I noted a somewhat impressive array of water choices – apple, cucumber, lime and mint infused. Oh la la.

/SPORT

In addition to the pool, which is pristine and still feels like the wrappers have just come off, there’s the gym and fitness studio which are open to ASL families (at certain times of day) as well as the students. Then there’s three banner-draped gymnasiums (sports halls) where you can imagine tight-fought basketball games being played out to an impassioned crowd (or perhaps I’ve just watched too many movies), and where most weekday PE is undertaken.

For squad sports and after school clubs in baseball, rugby, soccer, softball, tennis, and athletics track and field (athletics), there’s the school’s own 20-acre site of playing fields at Canons Park, a short hop on the tube or minibus ride away. This massive space is used mainly after school and allows ASL to host matches and tournaments including the International Schools Sports Tournament (ISSTs) with schools coming from Munich, Brussels, Vienna and beyond.

Some teams even travel for weekends away to European cities for sports fixtures, though you don’t need to pack the weekender for every game – there are matches played against local schools from 7th Grade (Year 8).

The school rents space for its 32 rowing boats in the boathouse of the University of London Boat Club and rowers are down there six days a week across the various squads. Well, if you’re Varsity-bound this is a serious feather in your cap.

/CREATIVE ARTS (MUSIC, DRAMA, ART, DT)

Time to live out your Zac Efron dreams – there is a High School Musical! And it’s performed in the Royal National Theatre-inspired School Center for Education and the Arts, no less, which seats 450 and has all the lights and pizzazz your starlet could want. Other productions include a 5th Grade open-to-all gig (this year they tackled Frozen Jr) and more select and high end performances from those studying acting. There’s a recording studio for music and podcasting as well as multiple performance and rehearsal spaces – with students taking credits in bands and orchestras and learning an instrument on the curriculum (they all start with ukulele, recorder, xylophone, and percussion), you need a lot of dedicated (and sound-proofed music space). 400 students sing in a choir (Grades 5-12) then there’s the five orchestras, five bands, and three jazz bands. Many students successfully audition for festival ensembles with The Association for Music in International Schools (AMIS) performing with students from around the world and as a High School music student you’re expected to go on tour. ASL music students have performed in Paris, Bonn, Prague and Leuven, on previous tours.

Art and DT play out in many forms across the school, from class projects in the Lower School to the many specialist subjects like painting, sculpture, digital art, narrative film-making, art and code, and so on. From the outset one’s made aware of art being beyond making marks on paper, and its application to careers.

The striking glass-sided monolith overlooking the playground is floor-to ceiling dedicated arts space with large tables, store cupboards packed to the rafters and a modern gallery space. Sky’s the limit!

LITTLIES

The kindergarten classrooms are in their own little corner of the school and couldn’t want for more space and equipment, with corners dedicated to nature, art, building blocks, play spaces off classrooms, and (the absolute deal sealer) a slide from the balcony into the playground. There’s also a littlies gym space for PE/dance etc and a versatile Creative Arts Space that is used across drama, art, dance, music and so on, plus two well equipped and surprisingly leafy playgrounds given this is Zone 2, with plenty of space to let off steam. The approach is inspired by the Italian system in Reggio Emilia, where it’s all about playful inquiry with teachers as collaborators and guides – a pedagogy that’s not dissimilar to Montessori but with more individual focus. Teachers are even sent out to Italy for a few days to study the system (form an orderly queue).

SIXTH FORM

This would be 11th and 12th Grade in High School. At this stage ASL students are allowed phones and can leave the campus, and it all feels quite collegiate. You’ll find them frequenting the chi chi sushi and juice bars of St John’s Wood at lunchtime. The academic offering also feels mature – the classes here are as varied as the imagination takes you with students choosing from silos in English, Maths, Science, Social Studies and World Language, but in classes as varied as Literature of Migration, Financial Mathematics, Game Design and App Development, TV and Film Acting, and Fashion Design.

ACADEMICS

In the Lower School classes are around 18-20 kids with Literacy, Math(s), Science and Social Studies taught by the form teacher and specialised teaching in Music, Art, PE, Technology and Media Literacy, and Spanish classes. There’s no ability streaming until 8th Grade (Year 9) when kids are deemed ready for algebra or geometry vs those who need a less intense pace. The focus is inquiry-based learning, critical thinking, and real-world application and – students rejoice – there’s no homework in Lower School. They’re fairly sheltered from the buzz of the older students in their own pods of classrooms, even eating lunch at their desks.

It’s not until Middle School (from 5th Grade/Year 6) that students graduate to the cafeteria. They meet in their ‘advisory’ (form tutor) at the start of the day, with 10-12 students then they move to classes with different teachers for Humanities, Maths, Science, languages (French, Mandarin or Spanish with Arabic added in High School), Music, Art, Drama, Health and PE. In the following year, coding is added then two of a band, orchestra, choir or drama (stage fright be gone), a year of health education and two’ semester-long ‘electives’ with options like dance, explore London, community action, robotics, video journalism or working on the Year Book.

While kids in the English system are choosing GCSE options in Year 9, at ASL they’re choosing from a term each of two electives including ceramics, film making or psychology. Come High School there’s no GCSEs or A Levels, and while there is some assessment to monitor progress, students aim to finish the year with credits towards a High School Diploma and can opt to take Advanced Placement classes, which are recognised as being at or above A Level standard in subjects like Calculus, Art History, Advanced French Literature and Chinese or Spanish Language and Culture. ASL has had no trouble with getting its students into prestigious institutions in the absence of A Levels. All go onto higher education across the world (60% apply to non US universities), with multiple acceptances in previous years to Harvard, Georgetown, Trinity and Berkeley as well as Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Durham, and beyond – you get the drift.

PASTORAL CARE

ASL is one of 12 schools (out of 5,000+) chosen to be a Spotlight School for Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence RULERS program (Recognising, Understanding, Labelling, Expressing, and Regulating emotion), which starts in Middle School. In Lower School, pastoral care starts in kindergarten with students choosing pictures to represent their mood, then there’s morning and afternoon meetings using the “Responsive Classrooms” model and lessons from lower school counsellors. In addition to the team of college counsellors, there’s educational psychologists, grade level deans (heads of year) and the advisory – equivalent of the form teacher, so plenty of points of contact.

THE HEAD

Matt Horvat is ASL’s ninth head of school, which gives you an inkling into the staff longevity here. He’s relatively new to the top job, having taken over in July 2023 after 11 years as head of a secondary school in Washington state. A maths and IT teacher and history graduate, he’s an all-rounder and champion of the Liberal Arts Program with students plucking subjects from arts, humanities, and social sciences alongside maths so as not to narrow their university options and allow them to switch beyond 16 years old. He’s approachable and modest. He’s not big on award ceremonies and gives prizes for character traits as much as achievement and there’s no prefects, but instead options for leadership roles in community, sport and environmental projects. It’s all about developing the soft skills that employers are looking for, he says, and skills/problem solving. They’re not teaching you science, they’re teaching you to be a scientist.

The next challenge for him is meeting increasing demand. He’s looking to make better use of space on the current site but would also be open to buying up neighbouring properties should one come up for sale. Also on the list is a refurb of the Lower School.

QUIRKS

So many when you compare ASL to conventional UK independent schools. Aside from the US system and lingo there’s quirks like the 30 pets in classrooms – we’re talking more fish, snakes, poison dart frogs than therapy dogs but popular with the littlies. Check bags at pick up! Speaking of littlies, there’s a long tradition of seniors walking kindergarteners into school for their first assembly.

ASL has an ‘Innovator in Residence’ – currently campaigner Christina Adane. She’ll deliver speeches and workshops and collaborate on classroom projects.

The school undertakes more than 100 trips a year be it sports tours, choir trips, day trips to museums, mud larking on the Thames or community outreach. Between that and its Summer Program (holiday camps), you’ve basically got year-round childcare – though at a cost.

Community outreach isn’t just paid lip service to – over half of High School students take part in community partnerships at over 30 organisations, many of them within walking distance. This is also taken into the classroom whether that’s the economics of a soup kitchen, access to food, or reflections on a volunteer day. During my visit a group of OAPs had come in to share their life stories with the littlies and these ‘grandfriends’ often come in to watch musical performances.

WRAPAROUND CARE

The Athletics and Extracurricular after school programme is huge across the age groups with 130 sports teams and 111 after school clubs, many of them student led like cyber security, investment club, mock trial law society and support for girls who code; giving you an insight into the kind of cultivated student body here. The school day is 8am-3pm with after-school activities and Stay and Play until 5pm. The after-school program is free for Middle Schoolers but there is a charge for some activities in the Lower School for activities like hip hop dancing, jewellery making, rock climbing or horse riding.

SEND

The Student Support Team (SST) includes speech and language therapists, EAL specialists, and learning support teachers with timetabled sessions given over to individual and in-class support.

ISI REPORT

The school received an Outstanding rating from Ofsted in Nov 2023 and the school has now transitioned to ISI so it’s next report will be undertaken by them.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

As of this year mobile phones were banned in Lower and Middle School so it’s just the High School students (age 14 and over) who can bring them onto campus.

TRANSPORT

Hold the travelcard! The school offers a door-to-door minibus from kindergarten in most cases but if not a nearby pick-up point.

FEES

Brace yourself: Fees, or ‘tuition’ is £35,400 for Kindergarten 1-Grade 4, £39,300 for Grades 5-8 and £40,900 for Grades 9-12, paid in two instalments across the year.

WORD ON THE GROUND

A Harkness table at The American School in London

All of the students I spoke to mentioned the positive pupil-teacher dynamic as a major plus and the 80-minute lessons (High School students have four lessons a day on an eight day cycle). Two teens I spoke to had come from conventional British independent schools and said they found the relationship less formal at ASL, encouraging them to speak up in class and embrace the discursive environment. Indeed that’s very much the vibe in the English department, where classes are taken around a Harkness table – an oval boardroom style table where debate is encouraged and there’s no sinking into your chair at the back. It’s a grown-up style of learning and right from Lower School students are expected to be independent and taught skills like how to email their teachers – the dog ate it doesn’t cut it here.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

No-one could question the stellar facilities with the kids not wanting for much by way of the arts and sports. Meanwhile, the academic offering gives scope to both specialise if they want to be the next Bill Gates or Tracey Emin, or keep their options broad if they’ve got no inkling on their calling. There’s also plenty of scope to extend beyond the classroom with ASL’s human rights symposium, apprenticeships and WorkX summer internships – even 4th Graders can be trained in conflict resolution to sort out playground disputes. It’s not all about a letter on a piece of paper.

Not for: There’s a well-heeled international vibe and while financial aid is on offer, amounting to £3.5m each year, if your kid can’t keep up with the sushi lunches, they might feel out in the cold. ASL isn’t for families who measure success by how quickly a child completes work, their class ranking, or how many year groups ahead their child is working; ASL emphasizes depth and mastery over acceleration. Finally, there’s also a hands-on attitude from the parents who get stuck into everything from community outreach to fundraising, socials, festivals and the on-site gym and library which some parents might find daunting.

Good for: Kids who find the UK exam culture limiting will prefer the continuous assessment here (and the chance to retake if it all goes wrong), and those who want more flexibility in their timetable but without being narrowed to three or four subjects.

Want to check it out for yourself? ASL’s next Open House events is 12 Dec with a Lower School and Kindergarten only day on 10 Dec. Register here.

The American School in London

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