School portraits | 14 March 2019

Merchant Taylors’ School

One of the country’s ‘great nine’ schools, Merchant Taylors’ School, near Rickmansworth, was founded in 1561 by the Merchant Taylors’ Company. Catering for boys from the ages of three to 18, it is highly academic but also well known for its extracurricular provision and pastoral care. Activities range from Combined Cadet Force and the Duke of Edinburgh Award to Greek and Mythology Club. It has a tutorial system, with each boy assigned a tutor who looks after him throughout his time at the school. Merchant Taylors’ also has a campus of 285 acres of parkland, and there is easy access from the Metropolitan line. More recently the school has excelled in sport, becoming under-17s national cricket champions in 2017. This year, design and technology students reached the national finals of the Jaguar Land Rover 4×4 in Schools Competition. The facilities are superb and give every boy the opportunity to find several things at which he can excel.

Lycée International
Winston Churchill

Built on the site of the former Brent town hall, the co-educational, bilingual Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill (founded by the French Education Charitable Trust) was opened in 2015 by the then French president François Hollande. Half of the primary curriculum is taught in English, and secondary students can choose to study either the English International Programme (EIP) or the French baccalauréat. The Lycée has 40 different nationalities of students, aged five to 18. In June last year the first intake of pupils graduated; 92 per cent chose to continue their education in the UK got places at a Russell Group university. There are after-school activities ranging from skateboarding to coding. The catering has won awards, and at lunchtime there’s a French, vegetarian and international option, as well as a cheeseboard and soup of the day.