Chair of Governors: Mrs Kate Kelleher
Head Master: Miss Louise Davidson
Bursar and Clerk to the Governors: Mrs Caroline Skillings
Director of HR: Mr Paul James
Deputy Head Academic: Mr Ed Matten
Assistant Head: Mr Piers Young
Head of Early Years: Dr Christopher Halls
Head of Pre-Prep: Mrs Shelley Whitehead
Head of Lower & Middle School & Designated Safeguarding Lead: Mrs Karen McDonald-Tuckwell
Head of Upper School: Mr Sasanka Velagapudi
Professional Tutor: Miss Jeannie McElroy
Age Range. Boys 3–13, Girls 3–4.
Number of Children. 794 boys, 15 girls.
Fees per term (2023-2024). Tuition: Day fees £5,375–£7,795, inclusive of lunch (there are no compulsory extras).
Dulwich Prep London is an independent preparatory school with a national reputation for excellence, the ‘Launchpad for life’. Our eight School Values of Love, Courage, Gratitude, Humility, Justice, Self-Discipline, Service and Honesty are at the forefront of everything we do.
While we are a boys’ school, with around 800 pupils aged between 3 and 13, we start with Early Years, which also caters for nursery-aged girls. There are four other sections to the school: the Pre-Prep (Years 1 & 2), the Lower School (Years 3 & 4), and the Middle & Upper Schools (Years 5 & 6 and 7 & 8).
At 13+, our boys go on to more than fifty excellent day and boarding schools throughout the country. Alleyn’s, Harrow, Dulwich College, Eton College, Marlborough College, Tonbridge, St Paul’s, Wellington College, Westminster, and Winchester College are just a selection of our leavers’ destination schools. For the academic year, 2022–2023, 95% of our Year 8 pupils achieved their first-choice senior school. A total of 41 scholarships (20 Academic, 2 Art, 4 Music and 15 Sport) were won by Year 8 pupils.
Situated in SE21, we have incredible facilities akin to a senior school. These include very spacious classrooms, a science block containing three labs, a design technology suite, a cookery suite, an observatory, a dedicated music school, a large sports hall, a studio theatre, an ICT suite, a superb art studio, a six-lane 25 m swimming pool, woodland and more than 25 acres of playing fields – unique given our privileged location.
Some of the opportunities available to our pupils are:
•We promote an inclusive approach to sport, enabling every pupil to be involved. We run more than ten sports teams each term, with the top teams regularly doing well in national competitions. Competitive fixtures happen in Football, Rugby, Athletics, Swimming, Water Polo, Cross Country and Biathlon.
•More than 700 individual music lessons take place every week, and boys have the opportunity to perform regularly in a range of groups and ensembles. 90% of pupils play one instrument, with many playing two.
•Over 30 groups regularly perform in our 300-seat concert hall. Many also appear on the programme for our gala concerts at prestigious venues such as Southwark Cathedral.
•We provide more than 150 clubs and extracurricular activities, stimulating boys’ intellectual and sporting interests. From Lego club to Table Tennis club, we like to think that there is something that interests everyone.
•We run residential trips for pupils in Years 3 to 8 within the curriculum built into the fee structure; these include outdoor pursuits trips to Wales and cultural visits to York. We also offer a range of trips during the holidays ranging from skiing or sailing trips, to sports tours to South Africa, to Geography trips to Iceland.
•Forms and year groups stage drama productions from Reception to Year 8. Pupils start with the foundational skills of Drama through structured play. Exploring spatial awareness, role play and creating character through story-telling, language and listening skills forms the basis for students to flourish in various performance opportunities. In Year 8, every class has a two-week-long intensive drama workshop in which pupils create a live performance with a theatre professional.
•As the school approaches its 140th Anniversary in 2025, its commitment to boys’ education will deepen by opening a senior section to welcome their first Year 9 cohort. The school wants to offer something different; therefore, we will not become ‘just’ an all-through school but strongly continue to be a school that supports families in finding the right school at the right time for their son, supporting the transition to senior school or sixth form in Year 7, Year 9, and Year 12.
The senior section will be deliberately smaller in comparison to most senior schools (a maximum of 60 in each year group), enabling the offer to be more personalised with a familiar education environment where the boys are well-known by staff.
Finally, in September 2024, the school will change its name to better represent its future offering and become Dulwich Prep & Senior.