Cranleigh School

Cranleigh Prep suits a child who likes room to run about and wants to try everything before deciding what they are good at. It is an independent, co-educational prep school for boys and girls aged 7 to 13, taking day pupils and boarders, with full, weekly and flexi boarding. It sits on 40 acres of Surrey countryside on Horseshoe Lane, just outside Cranleigh village, under an hour from London. The distinction worth being clear about: this is the prep school, and its main external entry point is 11+ into Year 7, with a smaller intake at 7+. Cranleigh School, the senior school, stands across the road and takes pupils at 13+, so a child joining at 11 has two years here before moving up.

The prep opened in September 1913 with around twenty boys, on land bought opposite the senior school, which dates from 1865; girls arrived in 2000. An apple orchard was planted in 1947 on ground cleared of wartime Anderson shelters, and when it was replanted in 2013 several of the original planters came back to help. The chapel followed in 1962. Clubs run from the expected sport and music to stonemasonry and darts, and phones are not permitted in school.

The Good Schools Guide writes of children able to 'fully embrace an idyllic childhood, try everything, build fantastic friendships', and of a school looking for 'every pupil's superpower'. The head calls prep 'the most important six years of a child's education'. It suits a child who would rather be outdoors, who will sing, play and try something new without needing to be best at it straight away, and who settles more easily knowing the next school is already across the road.