Thank you for visiting the website of Sompting Abbotts Prep School
A message from Headmaster Chris Gunn
Perhaps right now, you …
● feel that your child would be happiest within a small-scale and nurturing school environment?
● are ambitious for your child to meet his or her true potential?
● are concerned that your child is underperforming or lost in a crowd at their current setting?
● question if your own school experience allowed you to achieve what you were really capable of?
Some of those feelings I share with you …
… because at Sompting Abbotts, I'm personally invested: not just as Headmaster – but also as a parent. My two sons are pupils here.
As a ‘school dad’, I have a first-hand understanding of the concerns, fears, and aspirations of our parents.
As a headmaster, I am, I think, more accountable. Knowing that my children's future is intertwined with that of Sompting Abbotts’ makes me doubly committed to the school's long-term success!
Being a parent is challenging
You don’t only have to think about raising your child the best way you can. You have to worry about choosing a school that will be as committed to their future potential as you are.
Preparing children for not just their senior schools, but life beyond, is a significant and serious responsibility. I bear this in mind when parents entrust us with the thing they value most – their children’s education.
The ‘bedrock’ for children's future success is, I believe, laid down during the formative prep school years.
The senior or secondary schools they move onto are the lucky inheritors of this essential 'groundwork'!
Strengths in our (small) size
Sompting Abbotts is a small family-run school where we aim to inspire and educate in equal measure. We have a single form entry (which means we have just one class per year group, with average 15 children in each).
Inside the school, it feels like a family home.
This means our school community feels and acts like one big family and that we quickly get to understand your child. Everybody, school-wide, knows everyone's names (even our lovely kitchen staff). And everybody gets a lick from Millie, our gentle school labrador.
Millie, our friendly school dog. She occasionally disgraces herself by pinching the children's tuck!
As parents, we love our children more than anything. Our greatest goal is for them is to be happy and to fulfil their dreams. Perhaps yours is ...
A bookworm (who might one day write stories as foxy and fantastic as Roald Dahl's)?
A hunter of bugs and hairy caterpillars (destined for a career as a scientist)?
A natural performer (who may end up centre-stage in some role)?
A Lego builder (and who knows what they’ll design in the future)?
Childhood should be a precious and joyful time
The school’s small and safe learning environment is an antidote to the digital distractions and peer pressures that can mean children have to grow up too fast.
Our role is to enable every child at our school to become ‘world ready’; not just ‘exam ready’.
Your child’s personality is what will make him or her stand out as an adult
So we seek to gently foster a healthy sense of self-confidence in all our pupils.
We teach them to display good manners (we’re big proponents of ‘old-fashioned courtesies’ such as saying Good Morning or holding open doors).
We encourage them to communicate effectively with others and to be considerate of their feelings. Solid social skills like these – plus those of collaboration and teamwork – .are what they’ll need to excel in their lives and careers ahead.
They're only children once... Playing with their friends is one of the best ways in which they learn and develop.
There are no concrete playgrounds or chainlink fences at Sompting Abbotts. With 30 acres of grounds, woodland and sports facilities, your child will have many opportunities year-round to be immersed in fresh air and self-discovery – and to climb trees (we allow it, with a few rules of course!)
Pupils get to do plenty of the 'old-fashioned' outdoorsy stuff children love most (that personally I think they don’t get enough of these days).
Like den-building, playing hide-and-seek, spotting squirrels and making daisy chains. Or toasting marshmallows on a fire they've collected the wood for themselves. Or hunting for the shiniest conker in our grounds.
So that when your son or daughter looks back, he or she will remember school days they'll always feel nostalgic about.
Our annual Golden Conker Competition is a school-wide event!
The skills they will need ahead
Working life for your child will be different to yours. Many jobs are predicted to change or disappear. The generation this will affect most is our children's.
What jobs of the future will look like is beyond Siri or Alexa…
But your child was born curious and creative. If we can foster that creativity and fuel that curiosity, we’ll 'future-proof' them through a love of lifelong learning.
SENIOR SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIP DESTINATIONS
In the last 10 years, many of our boys and girls have continued their education – many with awards and exhibitions – at: Lancing College, Brighton College, Hurst College, Winchester, Sherborne, Roedean, Christ's Hospital, Seaford, Worth, Dulwich, Brighton Girls', Farlington and Burgess Hill Girls', among others.
We believe that while striving for excellence and exam success is important, it is the character of the pupils leaving us that sets them apart and, often, makes them the first choice of many senior schools.
"I can't believe how well you know my child ..."
... is something we often hear our pupils' parents say. We keep our class sizes small to ensure each child gets the one-to-one attention they need. Our pledge to you is to:
Give your child an excellent academic grounding, enriched by stimulating extra-curricular activities and sports opportunities
Place emphasis on high standards of conduct and character-building
Use the opportunities technology creates for learning to mobilise your digital native for the future
But we'll always believe the best apps for your child’s learning are their dedicated and experienced teachers.
A safe haven at a time of change
Most children stay at our school until age 13 (Year 8) – rather than moving to secondary school at Year 6 at age 11.
I’ve observed that staying with us until Year 8 helps them not to ‘grow up’ too quickly. It gives them a little extra ‘protected’ time from the onslaught of social media and peer pressures that inevitably will come with their secondary school transition. It means they can develop greater self-confidence with us at the beginning of their adolescence.
They can discover more of 'who they are', sheltered from the many teen social influences that will come with their move to their next bigger school.
They also have the opportunity to take on leadership roles of responsibility such as head girl and boy, prefects and house captains.
Success comes from self-belief
Many achieve public school scholarships at leading independents, including Lancing, Brighton and Hurst, or move onto high-performing state schools.
Scholarship destinations
We take a child-focused approach to nurture each child’s individual talents – whatever they are. Self-confidence is gained from each small success, which leads to more success.
So, when you kiss your son or daughter goodnight, you’ll know that you could be putting to bed a future author, environmental scientist, robotics engineer or performer – or whatever they dream of being...
Because you connected the dots between the value of an individualised education and your child's future possibilities.
I hope this has painted something of a picture for you of what life is like at Sompting Abbotts. But the best way to find out for yourself is to come and visit us.
Following our earlier announcement in July of the shortlisted entries for the Independent Schools of the Year 2023 awards, we're delighted Sompting Abbotts Preparatory School has been selected as a Finalist in the Independent School of the Year for Environmental Achievement category.