Admissions | Bassett House School

THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS

Choosing a school for your child

As a mother myself whose children have been through the London independent school system, I understand that choosing a school for your child is a big decision. My job as registrar is to make the decision-making process as easy for you as I can, by making sure you have all the information you need to be able to decide whether Bassett House is the right school for your child. You might want to start by calling me and having a chat (I’m on +44 20 8969 0313), you might like me to send you our prospectus, or you might feel that you really want to get on and visit us so you can see us for yourself. Whatever way works best for you, I will do my best to help.

This page sets out the types of visits we offer, lets you download a soft copy of our prospectus (please see below), sets out when and how most children join Bassett House and finally tells you how to apply for a place for your child, if you would like to do so.

Thalia Demetriades

Registrar

Visit us

Open mornings & book a visit

We welcome visits from parents who are considering Bassett House for their child. We hold open events two or three times a year. Our next open event will be on Saturday 18 May 2019, from 10am to 12noon and you are very welcome to come along. Please book your open afternoon place online or contact Thalia (at registrar@bassetths.org.uk) to reserve a slot. If you don’t want to wait that long or prefer the opportunity to spend more time with Mrs Cawthorne, the headmistress, she would be happy to give you a private tour during the school week so that you can see us in action and ask all the questions you have.

Please register your child before coming on a private tour: see the Entrance Procedure section below which tells you how. Once you have registered, we will acknowledge your registration and invite you for a private tour.

For location details and a map see the Contact Us page.

Contact Us

BOOK YOUR PLACE ON OUR NEXT OPEN EVENT

Prospectus

Our school

Our prospectus will give you an introduction to Bassett House. You can download it here or, if you would prefer a hard copy (for example, to show to grandparents), please request one from the school office by emailing registrar@bassetths.org.uk and we will post it to you. However, it can give you only a flavour of Bassett House. Nothing beats coming to see us for yourself.

Download our prospectus

Entry points to Bassett House

Starting at Bassett House School

At Bassett House, we focus on the individual and that starts with the entrance procedure. So if your child’s needs don’t fit the standard entrance pattern, please talk to us (call Thalia Demetriades, our registrar, on 020 8969 0313) and we can help.

Children normally start in the autumn term (starting early in September) either in the Den aged 3 or in Lower 1 (our reception year) aged 4. We do not assess children joining the school in the Den or who join Lower 1 in the autumn term.

If your child would join Lower 1 (reception) from the January onwards of that year, we will offer your child a taster session and, providing that is a success and there is a place available, we will then offer your child a place.

If you have an older child and are looking for them to move schools, please call Thalia, our registrar, to talk about your circumstances and what you are looking for. We do sometimes have occasional places for children further up the school. For older children going into older year groups, the school will assess your child’s level of attainment (focusing on mathematics and English) to determine whether your child will be a good fit for the class. This is to judge whether your child will be able to fully access the curriculum that the intended class is following.

Mrs Cawthorne will then decide whether or not we can offer your child a place.

Breakdown of classes

The school day

Bassett provides before- and after-school care

The school day runs from 8.30am – 3.30-4.05pm (dependent on age). However, some nursery children start off attending mornings only and then gradually build up to 5 full days depending on the child’s stamina and what parents consider best for their individual child. We also run a wide selection of after-school clubs Monday to Thursday for children in Reception to year 6 which extends the day for children attending those clubs to 5pm.

Recently in recognition of the time pressures on busy parents, we have introduced supervised before- and after-school care every day, Monday to Friday. We call it wraparound care. The morning sessions start at 7.45am and the afternoon sessions finish at 5.45pm.
In the morning children are given cereal and milk (or a non-dairy milk substitute for those children with dairy intolerance) and after- school they can eat a flapjack (or similar item) and a drink.
There are board games and other activities for them to play or do and also a quiet area where they can read. The sessions are run by a qualified teacher.

As one parent put it: “I can’t thank you enough. This service is truly invaluable…Brilliant.”

How to apply

Entrance procedure

Register and visit

You might like to come to one of our open days or evenings. You’ll find more information about coming to see Bassett House under the VISIT US section above. Afterwards, if you are interested in sending your child to Bassett House, please register him/her. Registration has two steps: completing the ONLINE REGISTRATION FORM and paying the registration fee of £100 per child. (Alternatively, you can fill in a hard copy form, available from Thalia Demetriades, our registrar, telephone +44 20 8969 0313, and arrange payment by bank transfer or credit/debit card.) By registering you are formalising your interest in Bassett House and you are securing your child’s position on the waiting list for your chosen start date. We will acknowledge your registration. If you have not already attended an open day or evening, we will then invite you to join a private tour.

Once you’ve registered and visited us, the next thing that happens depends on your particular circumstances.

Offers for children starting aged 3 or 4

If you have registered and visited and your child is coming in at the start of the academic year in September to our standard entry points of the Den (aged 3) or Lower 1 (aged 4), you have completed your parts of our entrance procedure and so just need to await an offer of a place for your child. Places are offered in registration order with priority given to brothers and sisters of children already at the school. In terms of timing, when you will receive an offer depends on how long it is before your child is due to start at Bassett House. For those children registered when they are babies, offers of places are sent out by post about 16 months before the child is due to start.

Offers for older children

If you wish your child to join Lower 1 (Reception) after Christmas of that year, we will offer him or her a taster session in the classroom. This lets us consider whether your child will fit in with the existing class. This is not an academic selection procedure: the vast majority of children will fit in well with their peer group which is all we require of them. Thalia, our registrar, will then let you know if and when you can expect to receive an offer.

If your child wishes to join further up the school, please contact Thalia, our registrar, to find out whether a place might be available in the relevant year group. If it is, the school will then invite your child to undertake an assessment to establish your child’s level of attainment (focusing on mathematics and English) to determine whether your child will be a good fit for the class. This allows the school to judge whether your child will be able to fully access the curriculum that the intended class is following. Thalia will then let you know if and when you can expect to receive an offer.

How to accept a place

When you receive your offer, you will also be given instructions on how to accept the offer. In brief, this will involve:

Returning the acceptance form, agreeing to the terms of the contract with the school.
Making a payment of the amount indicated on the offer letter.
If it applies to you (this will depend on which year group your child is going into and the timing of your offer), making a further payment by direct debit in the February before your child starts.
On your child’s first day at Bassett House, paying (via direct debit) the balance of fees for the first term at the rate that then applies, along with a deposit of £2,500. (The school will return the deposit to you when your child leaves Bassett House, so long as the school has received payment of all monies due.)

The total amount you will pay before your child starts will be a term’s fees (at the rate which applies when the payment(s) fall due) plus the deposit.

Your queries

We have tried to keep the entrance process as straightforward as we can, but we know it can seem quite complex. We are here to help. If you would like to discuss any aspect of admission, please contact our registrar, Thalia Demetriades, by emailing registrar@bassetths.org.uk or by calling +44 20 8969 0313.

Admissions Policy

The above is a summary of our Admissions Policy. You can access the full Admissions Policy (which takes precedence over this summary) via this link:

admissions policy

REGISTER ONLINE

Fees

Fees per term from September 2018

	FEES PAYABLE PER TERM(a)
THE DEN (NURSERY)
Mornings only (5 mornings each week)	£1,897(b)
Optional afternoon attendance (for an afternoon attended regularly through the term)	£590
Occasional afternoon attendance (per afternoon)	£60
LOWER 1 (RECEPTION)	£4,847(b)
FORMS 1 AND 2	£5,900
FORMS 3, 4, 5 AND 6	£6,150
Hot lunch or salad, prepared on the premises	Included in the above fees for full-day attendance

(a) Providing the fees for the term are paid in a single sum on the first day of term, the school allows a discount (reflected in the figures above) against the monthly payment scheme. Otherwise, the fees are payable monthly and the discount is not applied. To find out about paying on a monthly basis, please request further information from the registrar or click here.

(b) This reflects the Local Authority Grant (see below). Where parents decline the Local Authority Grant or their child is too old to qualify for it, the fees are £2,950 for mornings only in the Den and £5,900 in Lower 1.

A deposit of £2,500 is payable upon entry to the school. This is returned when the child leaves the school, subject to the school having received payment of all sums due to it.

Charges for optional subjects, clubs etc

MUSIC (INDIVIDUAL LESSONS)

Piano, singing, guitar, violin, flute, clarinet, saxophone, drum kit and ukulele

(ten lessons each of 30 minutes) £250

Recorder (ten lessons each of 20 minutes) £172

BALLET/DANCE(ten group lessons each of 45 minutes) £150

PRE-SCHOOL AND AFTER-SCHOOL CLUBS from £120

SPECIAL NEEDS TUITIONEach half-hour from £34

NOTE: Fees are inclusive of mid-morning milk and lunch (except for those children in the Den who attend for mornings only) and most outings but do not include any residential trips.

Government schemes to help reduce fees

LOCAL AUTHORITY GRANT FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN

If your child is under 5 on 1 September, 1 January or 1 April, for the term beginning in that month you may choose to take advantage of a Local Authority Grant (otherwise known as the Minimum Funding Entitlement or Nursery Education Grant) paid by the local authority to the school. This is attributed to a statutory maximum of 15 hours’ early years education per week. To cover contracted hours in excess of this statutory maximum, parents in receipt of the grant pay the difference between the amount of the grant and the school fees where the grant does not apply. The grant is £1,053.15 for the Spring Term 2019 but it generally fluctuates from term to term. As a service for parents we intend to continue to participate in this scheme for as long as possible, but this is not guaranteed: the regulatory complexity and administrative burden for the school increases periodically and may become too onerous.

CHILDCARE VOUCHERS AND TAX-FREE CHILDCARE

The school accepts most companies’ childcare vouchers. It also accepts payments under the government’s tax-free childcare scheme.

To download this information as a PDF, please click here.

Bursaries

House Schools Trust

House Schools Trust is an independent charity that raises funds and awards means-tested scholarships to bright and promising children whose parents would not otherwise be able to consider sending them to an independent fee-paying school. Means-tested scholarships are available, as funds permit, for children aged 7+. Candidates must currently be attending a state school and must have the right to reside in the UK. The scholarships are for places at one of the three schools in the House Schools Group, Bassett House in North Kensington, Orchard House in Chiswick and Prospect House in Putney. For more information, please visit houseschoolstrust.org.