WHAT?

Changing times at St John’s Beaumont School. After 137 years of educating boys, this traditional day and boarding Prep has opened its doors to girls. The transition to co-ed started in September 2023 when the first girls joined Pre-Prep, and they’re now steadily rising through the year groups. The first girls’ cohort will enter Y5 in September 2025 and Head Philip Barr is aiming for the school to become fully 50/50 co-ed within three years.

In another sign of the times, the school’s historic owners, the Jesuits, handed ownership in March 2025 to Intellego Education, which is building a family of premium schools across Europe. While SJB’s Jesuit principles remain firmly in place (and if you’re Catholic you’ll still feel at home here), it’s no longer purely a Catholic school but embracing pupils from a range of faiths. Its new mantra – “An ethos of excellence since 1888” – is all about being true to its history and heritage while moving with the times.

WHERE?

Perched on top of a beautiful 75-acre site in Old Windsor, this historic Prep occupies an enviable location, surrounded by famous neighbours (hello Eton College), close to the river Thames and Berkshire countryside, and yet just a short hop from Windsor town centre (Heathrow and London are just 11 miles away).

A new multi-use sports pitch provides the wow factor on entering the grounds, and the Grade II-listed main building is an absolute beauty, designed in 1888 by John Francis Bentley, the architect of Westminster Cathedral. St John’s Beaumont was the first purpose-built Prep school in the UK, but as the school has grown, sympathetic modern additions blend in with the original period architecture.

Beyond the bricks and mortar, there are playing fields, meadow and copse for the 204 children to let off steam. It’s slightly under the radar of many parents, but it definitely packs a punch, managing to excel on both academics and pastoral care. Destination schools tend to be top-tier – think Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Wellington – but in recent years there’s been a shift towards 13+ entry for a broader range of secondary options, including day schools like St George’s Weybridge and Epsom College.

FACILITIES

Sports facilities are top-notch, the refurbished labs with their sleek curved benches make studying science super-cool, there’s a neatly categorised library, a stunning art and design room, a beautiful old chapel (where whole-school Mass is still held twice a term), and the grounds are vast.

On the development front, new owners Intellego will invest £3.5million in upgrades for the school over the next couple of years. First on the list are plans to create a Maker Space – basically a super-charged STEAM lab, equipped with technology to bring all subjects to life, enriching arts and humanities as well as science. There’ll be no dozing off during History once pupils put on VR headsets to experience being in the WWI trenches.

Obviously, boarding provision for girls is high on the agenda too. The school is working with families to gauge the level of demand and has earmarked a few sites for a new girls’ boarding house, which could open from September 2026. In the meantime, the girls’ changing facilities and toilets have been fully refurbed. The main building is stunning – all parquet flooring, high ceilings and heritage paint colours – but the decorators will give it an extra-glossy spruce-up this summer, including revamping the Middle School classrooms.

SPORT

Excellent facilities with loads of sport as you’d expect in a prep school. Worth particular mention are the newly refurbed outdoor Astroturf courts, an impressive climbing wall, 25-metre indoor pool, golf putting green, a huge sports hall used for basketball and badminton, and high-tech indoor rowing so you can race boats without getting your feet wet.

SJB’s traditional sports are rugby, football and cricket, played on rotation throughout the terms. Now girls are on the team, hockey and netball have also been introduced and are popular with both sexes. All sports lessons and matches are mixed, and the girls are putting the boys through their paces on the playing fields, with several competing in the A-teams. Strong ties with the primarily female Windsor Hockey Club give girls’ sport an extra fillip.

St John's Beaumont Old Windsor Berkshire Swimming Pool

SJB’s swimmers continue to go from strength to strength under the school’s dedicated swimming coach – including a medal haul from the IAPS swimming galas. All the children (from Pre-Prep up) enjoy swimming – hardly surprising there’s a chunky number of Regional and County swimmers to be found at the school.

Extra-curricular offers a huge range of activities: climbing, rowing, yoga, SCUBA diving, kickboxing, polo, golf, tennis, athletics, judo and even online chess. The list is long. One of the school’s strengths is the encouragement to try activities that come less naturally and to give niche sports a go. The feeling of mastering something when you’ve really had to work for it cannot be bottled. Brilliant. The latest buzz is that SJB has been ranked the number one judo school in the country, based on performance at the 2025 IAPS competition. Impressive, considering the school only introduced judo 18 months ago. Most prep schools pull out all the stops to provide breadth in sport, but it’s not at the expense of art, music or academics here. It’s just part of SJB’s educational ecosystem.

CREATIVE ARTS

St John's Beaumont Old Windsor Berkshire boy playing Harp

On the day I visited, the music block was rocking to the sound of a young drummer enthusiastically bashing away to Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson. Nothing shy about these kids – and there’s no shortage of opportunities for them to flex their musical muscles with an orchestra, three choirs, a rock band, and a house music competition. The Music School has a lovely performance space and eight practice rooms above, where 13 specialist teachers offer one-to-one tuition for the harp, percussion, guitar, drums, piano, woodwind, brass, voice, violin, and cello.

The top end is exceptionally strong – pupils achieve Grade 8 and beyond and prestigious scholarships. But music’s not elitist here and everyone gets involved. It’s part of the curriculum through to Y8, plus compulsory choir for the littlies and weekly singing practice from Y3.

If you have a mini-Benedict Cumberbatch or Lily James, there’s a magical outdoor ecological amphitheatre (very cool) and SJB stages a wide variety of productions. This summer’s big show is Aladdin, and the Pre-Prep and Middle School will put on an outdoor theatre showcase. Some pupils are keener to slap on the greasepaint than others, but everyone’s encouraged to get involved (on the technical side if acting’s not your thing), and nearly half the children across the school do LAMDA. The annual verse-speaking competition is compulsory in Y4-8 and public speaking recently became part of the English curriculum. A smart move to prepare pupils for leadership jobs in later life. Future PM – why not?

The art room is one of our favourite spaces, the teacher is incredible, and there’s a lot of cross-subject pollination. The handmade clocks and Japanese-style papier-mâché sculptures on display tap into art, design and physics, but there are charcoal drawings, paintings, and clay pieces dotted around. Pupils are taught in the main art room from Y3; before that, their more ‘expressive’ creative talents flourish in the Pre-Prep classrooms.

LITTLIES

Pre-Prep (aka the Nicholas Owen Pre-Prep block) is run by the inspirational Head Pippa Powell-Harper and where the SJB co-ed journey begins. It’s a nurturing, free-flow space that’s close enough to feel part of the Prep buzz but set at a distance so as not to overwhelm, with its own separate playground.

Naturally, the littlies get all the benefits of the Prep facilities (swimming pool, science labs, music rooms, forest school, outdoor theatre etc), as well as their own newly renovated building that features a Sensory Room, STEM space, baking room and a menagerie of guinea pigs, hamsters, a tortoise, and a coop of chickens. Class sizes are relatively small, the children are lavished with attention, and sports lessons (PE and swimming) start in Y1. There’s an excellent range of after-school clubs for this age group, including chess, tennis, art and science. If they just want to sit and read (no argument here), there’s a dedicated classroom for that too.

THE HEAD

St John's Beaumont School head Philip Barr with Y2 pupil

Philip Barr was appointed as the new Head in September 2023, having previously been Deputy Head at SJB and Head at Donhead Prep School in Wimbledon – where the parents credit him for successfully navigating the Covid years. With his insider intel, he’s hit the ground running as SJB opens its new co-ed, multifaith chapter. Educated at a top London boys’ grammar, Barr is down-to-earth, charming, and energised to take this traditional Prep in a more progressive direction while keeping its Jesuit principles of pursuing excellence in academic and personal development.

Now girls are rising up through the school, Barr says the co-ed environment has brought balance and both sexes learn from other. Boys benefit from the girls’ academic rigour and the boys help the girls resolve friendship and social issues more easily. He reckons co-ed at this age helps stamp out misogynistic behaviour and sets the boys up with the character and leadership skills to positively influence any misogynistic attitudes at their next schools. It’s all about creating an environment where everyone is valued. Happiness rules the roost and the only rules are for kids to come to school happy, go home happy and come back the next day happy. Academically, his focus is on super-charging the digital learning and STEM offering. Expect to see robotics, coding, and Assisted Intelligence (a type of AI that turbo-boosts productivity and decision-making) appearing in the curriculum.

ACADEMICS

St John's Beaumont Old Windsor Berkshire Science lesson boys in lab coats playing with fire

Top marks here because SJB became an accredited High Performing School in summer 2024 and it’s now embedded this teaching language throughout the school. High Performance Learning is all about growth mindset, meta cognition and embracing the belief that all pupils can become high performers. Think of your child as an academic athlete, making marginal gains, stretching, challenging, and understanding the subjects and topics they are being taught. Tapping into the latest educational research, teaching is based on how children learn to improve thinking skills and develop ‘better brains’. There’s no resting on their laurels, though. In September 2025, SJB is starting the process to become a World Class High Performing School – the international gold standard for the best of the best.

Lessons take place in high ceilinged classrooms, each one with a fireplace (don’t worry they have central heating). But it’s not all nose down in a textbook, lessons can become very animated. Pupils are class-taught until Y5 with specialists for languages, art, music, and sport. Compulsory reasoning is added to the curriculum in Y3, Y4 and Y5 to prepare the children for senior school pre-testing, and each child has their own laptop from Y5.

Since the big change to co-ed, the school has reassessed its curriculum to make sure it’s not heavily weighted on male authors, artists and musicians, and adjusted its school trips to make them suitable for both boys and girls. Huge investment in the curriculum means that from September 2025, languages will be taught from Y1 – French first, then adding Spanish from Y3. It’s also investing in a linguistics course, devised at Eton, which enhances pupils’ learning by exploring how language works and develops. From September 2025 Barr is rolling out an extended after-school enrichment program – including extra free clubs and activities for parents financially squeezed by the VAT fee increase.

Though the children (as in most independent preps) take a basic academic test to join, the school cares more about ‘fit’ to ensure each SJB pupils thrives rather than survives. The ‘value added’ is impressive; the school is all about producing well-rounded, socially intelligent girls and boys. There’s an expectation to work hard, though, and teachers want each pupil to achieve their full potential. The scholarship programme is ambitious. Around 35% of each year group are put forward as scholarship candidates and, of those, around 70% are successful. The current Y8’s tally includes an academic scholarship (to Winchester), two sports scholarships, and three music scholarships – including a double music scholarship to Harrow.

While the majority head off to the likes of Eton, Wellington, Harrow and Winchester, there’s a shift to families moving on to day schools – popular choices are St George’s Weybridge, Hampton School, Reed’s School, and Epsom College. Girls’ destinations include Sir William Perkins’s, The Marist, and St Mary’s School Ascot. Starting in Y9 (13+) is a well-trodden path thanks to SJB’s strong relationships with next-step schools for both sexes.

PASTORAL

While SJB is no longer a Catholic school (around 25% of pupils are Catholic), its continuing tradition of Jesuit values means the pastoral care is excellent. There’s a warmth here that you don’t always get at traditional prep schools. The Animal system (that’s the house system) creates a sense of community and there’s a strong spiritual element. Boarders can choose to attend Mass once a week, and pupils reflect on their week at Friday night-prayers. They’re mostly in Latin, so bonus points for improving your Classics at the same time.

The Jesuit practice of Examen continues too – basically it’s a time to pause, take stock, and hit the reset button. Catholic or not, this allows the kids to intelligently debrief and move on. It’s a big tick in terms of mental health and wellbeing.

SEN

The school has around 15-20% pupils with additional needs who receive an impressive level of support. There’s a full-time SENCO specialist whose team includes a dyslexia specialist in school twice a week, two trained ELSA specialists to help pupils’ emotional literacy, and an independent listener to talk to children needing support. If a need is identified, the school can fund six individual sessions with a counsellor. From next summer, there are plans to develop the school’s healthcare centre into a hub for physical, emotional and pastoral care.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

Strict. In line with an increasing number of schools, mobile phones are banned. Boarders can phone home twice each week and at weekends.

BOARDING

St John’s Beaumont has always been a boarding school and its two dorms, called Morse (Y3-6) and Southwell (Y7-8) speak to a vintage era – two long lines of curtained cubicles, the ceiling festooned in flags representing the nationalities of the boarders. SJB has a flexible approach, offering full, weekly, and tailored boarding for those who want to sleepover two or three nights a week. The latest lights out is 9.30pm and there’s a bedtime routine of reading and a moment of reflection. You need to commit on a termly basis, but there are boarding ‘taster’ days to see if it’s right for you.

The staff work their socks off to create a family atmosphere, and the activities sound as much fun for the staff as they are for the kids. The annual Y8 event is called Race Across the Capitol. Using only three modes of transport, a small budget and clues, they have to make their way back to school in the fastest possible time. Grabbing an Uber definitely doesn’t count.

Boarders have a healthy divide between work and play. School finishes at 6pm then it’s ‘home time’, when the pupils change out of school uniform, sling on their trainers and play outside. The common room is kitted out with a pool and football table and plenty of places to chill out, but to be honest, the boarders spend a lot of time outside den-building, playing in the stream and roasting marshmallows around campfires. If girls’ boarding gets the green light, it could be based either in the main house or a separate house in the grounds. Exciting times, so watch this space.

WRAP AROUND CARE

Keen to lend a helping hand to frazzled parents juggling work and family, morning drop-off for Day pupils at Pre-Prep is 8am with activities running until 4pm. For Prep students, the day starts at 7.30am with activities running until 5pm (Y3 – Y5) and 6pm (Y6-8). After-school care is available for Nursery to Y5 until 6pm and they’ll get a hot supper too. Phew! Rustling up something more exotic than fish fingers can be a challenge when you’re all a bit weary.

QUIRKS

They’re all Animals here – no reflection on behaviour, it’s all part of the House System, and the pupils are assigned to Tigers, Yaks and Emus (aka TYEs). Each house collects TYE points each term, awarded for effort, achievement or commendable actions, like holding open doors or acts of kindness. There’s a House party at the end of each term riding on it (the winning House receives a presentational shield), so the stakes are high.

I loved the egalitarian prefect system, which lets everyone shine. In Y8, all the pupils in each house – Tigers, Yaks, and Emus – are made prefects, one house per term. There’s also a small leadership team of six pupils, who meet the Head once a fortnight. It’s a more inclusive approach and the idea is that everyone gets the chance to experience leadership responsibilities. It may just be handing back lost property, but future CEOs have to start somewhere.

Back on the animal theme, each year SJB sponsors five donkeys at the Donkey Derby at the carnival in the local village. And shall we talk about the seriously impressive visitors? The late Queen Elizabeth II popped by to open buildings, and BBC R4 presenter Sarah Montague, Runnymede MP Dr Ben Spencer, and Dr Jan Graffius, the curator of Stonyhurst Museum, have all given talks. There’s a starry speaker line-up each academic year.

ISI REPORT

The latest ISI report, in November 2024, found that SJB met standards in all areas. You can read the ISI report here.

FEES

Termly day fees including VAT: Nursery and Reception £4,474 – £5,104.40, Y1 £5,468.60, Y2 £5,834.60, Y3 £6,805.80, Y4 £8,142.60, and Y5-Y8 £9,576.20. Additional termly boarding fees are: Full Boarding (£4,775), Weekly Boarding (4 nights Sun-Thu £2,662), and Tailored Boarding (2-3 nights Sun-Thu £1,898 – £2,352). It offers scholarships for Y3 upwards (academic, sport, music, art and drama) with a fee remission of 5-10%, plus means-tested bursaries.

St John's Beaumont Old Windsor Berkshire

WORD ON THE GROUND

Change is never easy, particularly for a school so steeped in tradition, but SJB’s new owners have held forums with parents and the response has been positive. A couple of families who chose SJB specifically for its Catholic faith have moved elsewhere, but the overwhelming consensus is that the transition to co-ed makes a lot of sense, and many of them had been pleading for SJB to take their daughters.

Catholic or not, parents say they’re attracted to the school’s values, which still align with the Jesuit traditions. Ultimately, the children are SJB’s greatest advert – like the two boys who showed me round, they’re well-rounded, socially intelligent young people with impeccable manners. And what parent wouldn’t want their kids to have those qualities? The pastoral care, quality of teaching and family vibe also get rave reviews. This is a prep forging its path to an even brighter future rather than clinging to the past.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

Good for: Those looking for a co-ed Prep dedicated to bringing out pupils’ academic and personal best where opportunities are there for the taking. Sport, music, art, and drama are all very strong and St John’s excellent pastoral care will suit anyone looking for a family feel.

Not for: If you’re looking for a purely Catholic faith school, SJB’s move to become more of a broad church is probably not going to be your jam.

Dare to disagree? Be my guest! Arrange an individual tour or check out their Open Days here.

St John’s Beaumont, Priest Hill, Old Windsor, Berkshire SL4 2JN. Tel: 01784 432428

St John’s Beaumont, Old Windsor

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