St Augustine's Priory

"Our girls will change the world" is the mission that St Augustine's Priory prints across its prospectus, and the results give the claim some weight. This Catholic independent day school for girls in Ealing, West London, traces its foundation to 1634 and now educates around 367 pupils across a single all-through site, from a nursery that welcomes both boys and girls at age two up to a sixth form aiming students at Russell Group universities. Led since April 2023 by headteacher Christine Macallister, the school runs a nursery, prep, and senior department under one Catholic ethos that welcomes families of all faiths. Its A-level cohort sits in the top 4.0% in England, and its site carries an unusual asset for inner West London: a working farm. Places are selective, and the senior school is the busiest gateway in.

Founded in Paris in 1634 by the Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, St Augustine's Priory relocated to England in 1911 and has occupied its Ealing site ever since. The founding religious community departed in 1996, but the Catholic character stayed: daily acts of worship, a chapel at the centre of school life, and a link to nearby Ealing Abbey that culminates each December in the school Carol Service. This is a faith school that recruits across faiths, and the tone is more confident and outward-looking than cloistered.

Size shapes the feel of the place. With a whole-school roll of roughly 367 spanning ages two to eighteen, year groups are small, staff know pupils individually, and the prep and senior departments share a genuinely joined-up culture rather than operating as separate institutions. Inspectors visiting in November 2024 found a community built on mutual respect, sustained through daily worship and a PSHE programme that includes age-appropriate relationships and sex education. Behaviour is calm and orderly, the product of high staff expectations and a consistent behaviour policy rather than heavy discipline.

The youngest children set the tone at the bottom of the school. The nursery takes girls and boys from age two into a well-planned early-years setting where, inspectors noted, provision is strong and progress is good, and where the on-site farm turns feeding chickens and tending herbs into part of the school day. From Reception the school becomes girls-only, and that early exposure to a small, purposeful community carries upward.

The mission statement is not decoration. Leadership frames the school around producing young women who lead and innovate, and that ambition threads through the academic pace, the platform given to public performance, and the way older students mentor younger ones. For a school of this scale, the range of what a girl can try here, from an on-site farm to a netball academy, is what gives the place its character.

St Augustine's Priory is academically selective, and the exam data reflects it. At A-level, the school ranks 103rd of 2,562 in England for results, placing it in the top 4.0% (ranked against all schools in England with published A-level results, state and independent). That is well above the England average. On the FindMySchool overall measure, which blends results with our inspection score, it sits 88th of 2,561 in England and second of all sixth forms in its Ealing area. These are proprietary FindMySchool rankings built from official data.

The underlying grades are strong. In the most recent A-level series, 35% of entries were graded A*, and 57% reached A* or A, comfortably more than double the England average of around 24% at that level. Fully 84% of grades landed at A* to B, against an England average nearer 47%. For a sixth form of this size, that consistency at the top end is the headline achievement, and it is the reason so many leavers convert their results into competitive university offers.

The senior school performs almost as strongly at GCSE. It ranks 259th of 3,895 in England for GCSE results, which is the top 6.6% and well above the England average (again, measured against every school in England with published GCSE results, state and independent). On the blended overall measure it stands 215th of 3,887 in England and third in its Ealing area. At grade level, 44% of GCSE entries were awarded grade 9 or 8, and 64% reached grade 7 or above, so the majority of results sit in the top three grades. Because the senior and sixth-form phases share one roof, girls who thrive at GCSE typically carry that momentum straight into A-level rather than moving elsewhere at sixteen.

A word on scale is worth adding. These are small cohorts, so a single strong or weak year moves the percentages more than at a large school. What the multi-year picture shows, across both GCSE and A-level, is a school that reliably places its exam groups in the top tenth in England. For parents comparing selective options, that consistency, rather than any single headline, is the fairer measure of what the school delivers year on year.

Teaching is the engine behind those results, and it is well drilled. The November 2024 inspection judged most teaching to be highly effective, resulting from well-planned lessons that use varied methods and resources, with individualised feedback that helps girls make good progress. Leaders monitor lesson quality through comprehensive reviews, so strong practice is spread rather than left to chance.

The curriculum is built to challenge from the start. In the early years, provision is well planned and progress is good, giving the youngest children a firm foundation before they move into the prep department. Higher up, the subject offer stretches well beyond the core: the sixth form runs A-levels in Latin, Russian, Further Maths, Electronic Engineering, Economics, Computing, and Global Humanitarian Studies alongside the sciences, humanities, and creative arts, giving able linguists and future engineers room to specialise rather than funnelling everyone through the same short list.

Support is individualised where it is needed. Specialist learning support teachers provide one-to-one sessions for girls with dyslexia and other specific difficulties, and dedicated EAL staff run one-to-one lessons for students who speak English as an additional language, a meaningful cohort in this part of West London. Subject teachers also offer targeted one-to-one help for particular difficulties, so a girl who stumbles in one area is not left to fall behind. The single improvement point inspectors raised was narrow and technical: making sure assessment data in the prep school is used as effectively as possible to track the progress of different groups, a refinement rather than a weakness.

The sixth form is unambiguously university-focused, and the destinations bear that out. In 2025, 93% of leavers received offers from Russell Group universities, with named destinations including King's College London, the London School of Economics, the University of St Andrews, Durham, University College London, Exeter, and Leeds. The subject spread runs from biomedical science and economics to international relations and modern languages, so the cohort scatters across competitive courses rather than clustering in one field.

Oxbridge features too, at the scale you would expect from a small sixth form. In the most recent cycle the school recorded a Cambridge application that converted to an offer and a place. Numbers this small move sharply year to year, so the more reliable signal for families is the breadth and quality of the wider Russell Group destination list rather than any single Oxbridge tally.

Progression within the school matters as much as the exit at eighteen. Girls move up from the prep department into the senior school and, subject to meeting the entry bar, on into the sixth form. Internal candidates and external applicants alike need a minimum of five GCSEs at grade 6 or above, including maths and English language, to start in Year 12, so a sixth-form place is earned on results rather than assumed. In practice the sixth form draws both its own Year 11 leavers and a smaller number of external joiners attracted by the results.

Entry is selective and staged across several points. The main gateways are nursery, Reception, Year 5, Year 7, and Year 12, with places in other year groups considered subject to availability. The nursery admits from age two and welcomes both boys and girls, offering around fifteen places; from Reception onward, where the intake is roughly a dozen girls, the school is single-sex. Year 7 is the largest intake and the busiest point of competition, so families targeting the senior school should plan around that entry.

Assessment reflects the phase. At 11+, St Augustine's Priory takes part in London Consortium testing, the shared assessment used by a group of West London independents, alongside the school's own process. Sixth-form entry rests on the five-grade-6 GCSE threshold described above, with individual subjects setting their own requirements. Younger entrants are assessed in an age-appropriate way rather than through formal examinations.

Because this is an independent school, there is no local-authority catchment and no fixed distance rule; a place depends on the assessment and on availability in the year group sought. Families weighing the commute can use the FindMySchool map search to gauge travel time from home, and the saved-schools shortlist to line St Augustine's Priory up against other Ealing independents before registering. Given how selective the senior intake is, early registration is sensible.

Pastoral care is a clear strength, and the inspection evidence is firm on it. Safeguarding procedures were found to be thorough and effective, with leaders drawing on external agency support where needed and pupils having reliable access to trusted adults and to counselling. In a small school, that access is more than a policy line; girls are known well enough that concerns surface early and are dealt with before they grow. Older girls also mentor younger ones, so pastoral support runs peer to peer as well as staff to pupil.

Wellbeing is woven into the timetable rather than bolted on. The PSHE curriculum, including relationships and sex education, sits alongside daily worship and a strong emphasis on service: girls support local community groups and charities, and social awareness is treated as part of the education, not an extra. Physical health is taken seriously too, from the specialist strength and conditioning programme designed for young women to the breadth of sport on offer. The result is a pastoral culture that inspectors linked directly to the school's calm behaviour and to its stated aim of developing confident, socially aware young women.

For a school of its size, St Augustine's Priory carries an unusually broad co-curricular programme, and four pillars stand out.

Music is the most developed. The school runs a full stack of ensembles across both phases, from the Prep Orchestra, Prep String Ensemble, Prep Choir, Prep Flute Ensemble, and Prep Musical Theatre in the junior years to the Senior Flute Ensemble, Senior String Ensemble, Chamber Choir, Pop Choir, Clarinet Ensemble, Jazz Band, and Acoustic Guitar Ensemble higher up. Performance is public and ambitious: girls sing at the Carol Service and Feast Day at Ealing Abbey, join thousands of others for Young Voices at Wembley Arena, and take part in a musical exchange with the school's Paris sister school, Sainte Marie-de-Neuilly. That regular exposure to real audiences and to an international partner builds a performance culture few small schools can match.

Drama is nearly as strong and tightly structured. LAMDA examinations begin as early as Year 1 in the prep school and build toward a Senior LAMDA Showcase judged by a professional casting agent. A biennial senior production at the Questors Theatre in Ealing brings together students from Years 7 to 13 on a professional stage, and the most committed performers can follow the Drama Gifted Pathway, with workshops and careers talks from industry professionals, or contribute to the National Theatre's New Views playwriting scheme. Staff and drama scholars even run their own theatre company, the Priory Players, staging annual cabarets. Recent musical productions have included Annie, Little Shop of Horrors, Chicago, Grease, Sister Act, and The Addams Family.

Sport is led by netball. The Priory Netball Academy supports elite athletes competing with London Pulse, Saracens Mavericks, and Middlesex, backed by a strength and conditioning programme built specifically for young women. Fixtures reach beyond England through sports tours, with netball played in Paris and hockey in Holland, and matches run year-round on a full-size, floodlit, all-weather astroturf pitch that keeps play going through winter evenings.

The fourth pillar is the site itself. Priory Farm gives girls a working farm on their own grounds, home to animals including chickens and goats plus seasonal vegetables and herbs that pupils tend through the year, an outdoor, hands-on strand that dovetails with the pupil-run Eco-Schools Club and its sustainability drives, from a No Paper day and a No Electricity day to a car-free Walk-to-School week. Few schools in inner West London can teach responsibility and biology quite so literally, and for the youngest children the farm is a highlight of the week.

Fees are charged per term and, from 2026/27, carry 20% VAT. In the senior department the tuition fee is £7,405 per term before VAT, which comes to £8,886 including it. The preparatory department is £6,185 per term before VAT (£7,422 including), the pre-preparatory department £5,525 before VAT (£6,630 including), and Reception £3,100 per term. A one-off registration fee of £150 and an acceptance deposit of £2,000 apply. For nursery fee details, families should consult the school directly, as funded early-years hours are available to eligible households.

Financial support runs alongside the fees rather than as an afterthought. Scholarships are offered at several entry points: at 11+ for academic ability, art, drama, music, and sport, each worth up to 10% of tuition; at 13+ for sport; and at 14+ for modern languages. The sixth form carries the most valuable awards, headed by the Mary Tredway Award, which covers 100% of tuition, alongside a Creative Arts scholarship worth 50% and subject-specific awards. Means-tested bursaries are available at both 11+ and 16+ for strong candidates whose families could not otherwise afford the fees, so the school's own financial aid can materially change what is affordable. Scholarships reward merit; bursaries respond to family income, and the two can be combined for the right candidate.

St Augustine's Priory occupies a single site on Hillcrest Road in Ealing, West London, bringing nursery, prep, and senior pupils together on grounds that include a chapel, a school hall, the astroturf pitch, and the on-site farm. The all-through structure means a family can, in principle, stay from age two to eighteen without a change of school.

Travel is well served by public transport. Bus route 483 links Ealing to Harrow, route 112 runs from Haven Green and Ealing Broadway to North Finchley, and route 226 connects Ealing Broadway to Golders Green, drawing pupils in from across the western and north-western reaches of London. For families comparing the daily journey against other Ealing independents, the FindMySchool local hub tool lets you view nearby schools side by side. Specific nursery and school hours, and any wraparound or holiday care, are best confirmed directly with the school, as arrangements differ by department. For nursery costs, families should ask the school about fees and about the government-funded early-years hours open to eligible households.

Entry is competitive, especially at 11+. The senior school is the busiest gateway and the intake is academically selective, with 11+ candidates sitting London Consortium assessments. Strong applicants can still miss out in a heavily subscribed year, so families should register early and hold a considered second choice.

Fees carry VAT from 2026/27. Senior tuition reaches £8,886 per term once 20% VAT is included, a meaningful step up. The school's scholarships and means-tested bursaries can offset this for eligible families, but the headline cost is now higher than the pre-VAT figure many parents will remember.

It is a small, single-sex school. With a whole-school roll around 367, cohorts are small and social circles tighter than at a large co-educational school. That suits girls who flourish with close staff attention and a strong identity, but families wanting a big year group or a mixed environment should weigh the size carefully. Nursery is the only co-educational point.

Sixth-form places must be earned. Progression into Year 12 requires at least five GCSEs at grade 6 or above, including maths and English. Girls performing below that bar at GCSE are not guaranteed a continuation into the school's own sixth form.

St Augustine's Priory delivers a genuinely strong academic education inside a small, faith-rooted, all-through setting. A sixth form in the top 4.0% in England, a GCSE cohort in the top 6.6%, and a 2025 leaving group with a 93% Russell Group offer rate mark it out as a serious academic proposition, while music, drama, netball, and a working farm give day-to-day life real range. Pastoral care and safeguarding are firm, and the November 2024 inspection confirmed the school meets every required standard.

It is best suited to families in West London seeking a selective, academically ambitious Catholic education for a daughter who will thrive in a close, performance-minded community, and who value strong music and drama alongside results. The main caveat is straightforward: entry is competitive, particularly at Year 7, and the education comes at an independent-school price that now includes VAT, though the school's own scholarships and bursaries can bring it within reach for the right candidates.