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Schools – Where to Start?

on Jan 9, 2017

This article was commissioned to Magus Education  by ParentVille. We republish it with their permission. This is how it goes. You pee on a stick. Small hurrah. You bite your nails for the next 12 weeks before sharing the news. Toast. Sorry, mocktail for you. Flash- forward a few weeks — you have yet to hit check out on that flattering maternity dress in your Seraphine basket — when it starts. A whisper from a colleague here, a flash of panic across a well-meaning friend’s face there, a schools’ special in Parents magazine. The chorus of voices becomes deafeningly loud, the same question repeats again and again: have you put your unborn child’s name down for nurseries? Schools? Universities? You laugh it off at first; they can’t be serious. But they are. And soon you laugh no more, because the whisper has built to a terrifying roar of third-hand horror stories along tales of creepy...

Talking Heads: Dr Dunn, headmistress of UCS Pre-Prep

on Oct 12, 2016

Dr Zoe Dunn has been headmistress of UCS Pre-Prep since Sept. 2015. Prior to that, she founded Rimon, a free school in Golders Green, and taught extensively in both the state and independent sectors. What is driving the changes at UCS Pre-Prep? Up to now we have been a co-ed school with a main entry at 3+ until 7. From Sept. 2018 we will admit only boys at 4+ via a playdate assessment. The changes are due to a combination of the school market outside changing, with more and more girls leaving at 4+, and our closer integration within the UCS Foundation. Because the UCS Junior and Senior Schools are boys’ schools, more boys were applying at the Pre-Prep, so it’s a natural evolution. Losing the nursery provision was a sad impact of single sex but will allow us to revolutionise the school space we have and build a bespoke science/technology/art room. One of our strengths is specialist...