WHAT? WHERE?

Seismic changes are afoot at this 80-year old boys’ prep for 7-13 year olds in central London, with the introduction of Reception-Year 2 pupils and the admission of girls throughout the school from 2026.

Currently there are 286 pupils but this is set to grow two thirds by 2030 when the school will be fully co-ed. It’ll start with 100 girls in total going into Reception, Year 3 and Year 7.

Although distinct in its own rights, Westminster Under (or Prep) school is part of the same charity as the academic powerhouse, Westminster (over 800 years old). It too is going fully co-ed from having had girls in the Sixth Form since the 70s.

FACILITIES

The school’s position on Vincent Square overlooking its own sports ground and pavilion belies its Zone 1 location, with the London Eye and Westminster Cathedral visible a few rooftops away. For now, this busy and academic prep is housed in two buildings – the Victorian Adrian House with its decent sized and bright classrooms albeit with a trad feel to them, and then George House, a more modern space with the dining room and art studios. To enable the expansion, Westminster has bought a former office block next door and has ambitious plans to transform it.

/SPORT

With two tennis courts, rugby/football/cricket grounds and a recently refurbished pavilion within Vincent Square, you can probably gather this isn’t your average city square. In fact, at 10 acres, it’s one of the largest private green spaces in central London, and also includes an adventure play area and ultimately will house an outdoor classroom. The massive art deco Sports Hall has over 6,000m² of space, which includes a multi-use studio, rowing suite and weights gym (it’s also used by the senior school), plus a dojo and climbing wall. The boys play football, cricket, hockey, and rugby and can have a go at athletics, basketball, cross country, swimming, skiing, rowing, and tennis if they’re interested plus the after-school club offering includes an array of sports like fencing, judo, karate, climbing and table tennis.

Swimming is weekly at the local Queen Mother Sports Centre and while this and other sports aren’t necessarily the focus here (not like chess and maths), the boys have two games and one PE lesson a week and hold their own in regional and inter-school fixtures (Fives is just one of the sports played at National level) and they get to tour – the 1st cricket team goes to South Africa, for example.

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

Music is massive here and the two big concerts – in the summer at St John’s Smith Square, and the carol service at St Margaret’s at Westminster Abbey – are absolute spine-tinglers, thanks to the precision and passion of the school’s choirs and orchestras (two grand pianos were played simultaneously last year). The Senior Choir has appeared in concert with the English Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and has been a finalist in the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year Competition three times, as well as touring all over the world. Voice getting a little croaky? No problem, there’s a Changing Voices Choir for you.

A whopping 90% of the boys take instrument lessons with one of the 20 visiting teachers and they ace exams – 25 of the boys are Grade 8 violin or above at the moment. The latest event is a Eurovision contest in which the boys sing in different languages. You get the drift.

Drama has a modern performance space with retractable seating, lighting rigs and modern sound equipment and there are three big productions a year for the junior, middle and senior schools. Weekly lessons often integrate with English, Latin or Greek and there’s after-school LAMDA for the real thesps.

Art is highly thought-of and forms split into two classes of 11 to give the boys more focused teaching in anything from textiles, clay, ceramics, digital design and screen printing to sculpture, charcoal, and watercolour. The art on the walls around the school looks almost GCSE standard from the older boys and alumni regularly come back to speak about their artistic careers from photography to architecture. One anomaly is that DT isn’t taught here – so don’t ask a Westminster Under boy to put up a shelf, but there is lots of doing and making in Art and Design and robotics is covered in IT.

/SCHOOL

Science is a big deal at Westminster Under and the boys get their Bunsen Burner licence in Year 5 though they will undertake lots of experiments and hands-on practicals in the two dedicated labs even before they get to strike a match.

There’s a lovely library that’s stocked to the rafters and the librarian welcomes boys at break-time and lunch if they’re more bookish than outdoorsy. This is also where some 1-to-1 SEN support lessons take place. With its beanbags and round tables it’d be a welcome space for boys who find rows of single desks intimidating.

Cubing is a big thing here – that’s the Rubik’s kind to you and me – and there’s a league and final assembly to showcase the champs. The school record is 46 seconds for three cubes.

Class sizes vary by subject but are capped at a maximum of 22, which reduces as you go up the school.

ACADEMICS

With most boys going onto Westminster senior, the teachers aren’t bound by an exam curriculum and are given a relatively free reign. Pupils are taught by specialists from Year 5, when Latin and Greek come in. Languages are a big focus with plenty of timetable given over to both modern and ancient tongues.

The vast majority of boys go onto Westminster for Year 9 but a handful each year elect to go to Eton and occasionally to Harrow, Winchester or St Paul’s. It’s rare that students don’t get their first choice – it happens ‘every few years’. The rest have a high proportion of scholarships – 5 of the 7 at the senior school is normal plus a couple of the Eton King Scholarships if they’re willing to board. How to measure their progress academically? CAT scores are gathered but with so many straight 141s (100%), a better barometer is the destination school haul or the many prizes and accolades they scoop up along the way in chess, maths, history and beyond.

Maths spills out of the classroom with weekly ‘Maths Hat’ problems left in the corridor for every boy to have a go at, from which winners are drawn from a hat each week for a chance to win a chocolate bar. There’s maths movie nights, tours to the LSE and Bletchley Park and focused support for those who receive the dreaded ‘PAMCOF’ acronym on their homework (Please Attend Maths Clinic On Friday).

PASTORAL CARE

The boys have various points of contact if they need – the form teacher and support teacher as well as their head of year, house tutor and pastoral lead, plus there’s a BACP-accredited Child and Adolescent counsellor on site who’s joined by the therapy dog, Finn, a Labradoodle. He’s always up for being taken for a walk around the square – much easier than divulging your worries across a table. The school tries to stay up-to-date with its PSHE delivery with topics such as vaping, Tiktok, and consent among recent discussions, all delivered by a PSHE-trained teacher rather than simply the relevant form tutor. Being in trouble is seen as a restorative process with opportunities for atonement over punishment, and the older boys regularly conduct assemblies in their position as role models. It’s not a big school so behaviour is hard to hide. Vertical House Families enrich this connection between age groups, with a couple of the houses having secret handshakes. That’s a chance for some serious kudos with the Year 8s.

SEND

The school’s SENCO keeps track of those boys who need extra support and offers 1-to-1 sessions in addition to the extra clinics put on by various subject teachers.

THE HEAD

If you’re expecting a wizened old duffer you’d be well off the mark – the Master here is Kate Jefferson, a dynamic and sparky Cambridge and Durham grad who cut her teeth in an academy then swiftly got this plum job at one of the country’s top prep schools. She’s big on having a modern and relevant curriculum and wants the boys to be questioning and thoughtful. She feels the leap to co-ed shouldn’t be too much of a shock for the boys thanks to a progressive PSHE approach which includes talks by speakers like Laura Bates, and she’s brough a lot of women onto the SMT to balance the leadership of the school. She meets with a different group of boys twice a week for breakfast to keep in touch and is keen on community outreach, with boys reading and maths tutoring at local schools and events like tea with jazz at a local old people’s home.

Kate’s focus ahead of the girls arrival in 2026 will be getting the new multi-million pound building ready. Over the intervening years there will be a juggle between the new buildings but ultimately it’ll be worth the shuffling as plans for the final space look impressive. There’s a double height atrium with in-vogue hellerup stairs so boys can sit amphitheatre like and watch a big screen that will show, knowing Westminster Under, a chess match. The boys’ input to the design has seen Latin inscriptions added to the stairs and there’s hope of a rooftop wellbeing space with sustainability high on the agenda. Reception to Year 4 will stay in the old building, and they won’t be short changed – it’s set to be fully redeveloped by 2026 with a multi-purpose project room for DT, cooking and art, plus a new library and play balcony along with the existing theatre.

WRAP AROUND CARE

Arrival happens in the small window of 8-8.15am with no breakfast club offering currently available. The day finishes at 3.20pm-4.30pm depending on age of the boy and day of the week. This can be extended to 5.45pm with after-school clubs, which alongside the sports include robotics, cookery, bridge, animation, music and drama. Looks like you’ll need an au pair or an understanding boss. Alongside the after-school clubs, boys run their own lunchtime clubs with Dungeons & Dragons currently a best seller as well as coding and book club.

TRANSPORT

The tube or bus network is the most popular medium for most families who aren’t close enough to walk or cycle. There are two minibus services to West London, which parents organise directly with the bus operator.

QUIRKS

Chess is huge here. Every boy plays in a year group league from which the winners go on to compete in national competitions and have, over the years, filled cabinets with their trophies. As well as frequently claiming the U9s and U11s champion title, in 2022 Westminster Under School was the only prep to reach the U19 finals where the team finished 16th playing against kids who were sitting their A-Levels.

FEES

It’s a punchy £8,136 per term for Years 3 & 4 and £8,340 for Years 5-8, putting it above the average, but in line with the likes of Dulwich.

WORD ON THE GROUND

The boys here love school, whether that’s singing in the choir, chess games at lunchtime or debating society. Loafers need not apply and would almost certainly struggle with the pace of life, the general academic banter and enthusiasm for all things geeky. They even love the food – mind you, from what I saw and smelt in the canteen, it is good – there’s plenty of choice and it’s all freshly cooked on site.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

This high achieving school is on the cusp of big new things with its contemporary new building doubling its physical size and enabling a 66% expansion in pupil numbers by 2030.

Good for: Super bright boys (and girls soon) who read The Week Junior (or possibly their parents’ Economist) for kicks and would bounce off the intellectual achievements of their classmates rather than be swamped by them.

Not for: While it’s not intellectually snobby, a student who might feel like the class star elsewhere could be disheartened by their test positions in these stellar surroundings. Also a child that’s absolutely mad about DT would be disappointed by the lack of provision.

All change at Westminster Under! Here’s the time line:

• Girls and boys join a brand new Reception year at Westminster Under School in September 2026

• Girls also joining boys at Westminster Under School in Years 3 and 7 in September 2026

• Girls then joining boys in Westminster School’s Year 9 Fifth Form from September 2028

Want to check it out for yourself? Here’s the admissions process, and you need to enquire online about Open Days.

Westminster Under School, 27 Vincent Square, London SW1P 2NN; Tel, 020 7821 5788; email wusreception@westminster.org.uk; www.westminsterunder.org.uk

Westminster Under School, London

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