I think people are often put off by the word “small”,’ admits Leweston’s new headmaster John Paget-Tomlinson, where the senior-school tally sits at only 202, ‘but the massive advantage is the attention that can be given—dare I say lavished—on individuals. Having worked in a school of nearly 1,000, I’ve seen that a child can get completely lost in the grey middle. I think that, more than anything else, parents want their children to be known and valued as individuals.’
For the mother of identical twin girls who started at the Dorset school last term, the modest headcount has added prominence. ‘In a small environment, everybody gets to know them as individuals rather than just as “the twins”,’ says Anne-Louise Bellis. ‘The beauty is that, as parents, you know the whole cohort and the children do as well.’
Having looked at a smorgasbord of sprawling public schools, mother of three daughters Simone Truett and her husband settled on Heathfield in Berkshire, which has 191 girls on the register. ‘The fact that it’s a small school was one of the main draws. Often schools promise to cater for your child’s individual needs, but it’s logistically impossible, even with the best will in the world,’ says Mrs Truett. ‘Heathfield seemed the best prepared to be in loco parentis. We love the fact that the headmistress, Marina Gardiner Legge, maintains that, if we call at any time, she absolutely knows who our child is and what’s going on.’
Denne historien er fra February 26, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra February 26, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
