WHAT? WHERE?

Across 35 acres of surprisingly leafy Edgware, North London Collegiate School – a girls’ all-through day school for 1,300 pupils, aged 4-18 yrs – and the Junior School is the 4–11 gateway into one of the UK’s most famous girls’ schools. There are 320 girls here, two-form entry from Reception to Y6, with class sizes of 20-21 in the littlies and 24–25 higher up. Small enough for each child to be known and lavished with attention, big enough to be able to be buzzy and collaborative. 

It’s academically selective, unapologetically ambitious and yet, the second you step in, the stereotype of cold hothouse sort of dissolves. This is not a Prep full of mini-Hermione Grangers marching through silent corridors. The vibe is brisk but friendly. This is very much a school for girls who are curious and up for engaging with the world. As the Head puts it, the school’s reputation might sound a bit intimidating from the outside, but the lived reality is joyful, chatty and kind. And it shows everywhere.

FACILITIES

North London Collegiate students in lesson

The Junior building looks perfectly pleasant from the outside, but inside it opens up into a rabbit warren of enticing teaching spaces. The science lab, recently renovated, was hosting a chocolate-melting experiment when we dropped in – allegedly to explore body temperature and particles, but we see you, girls. It’s typical of how NLCS does learning: conceptually rigorous, but also fun and very “primary in the best way”.

The old internal courtyard has been glassed over to create the Junior Learning Hub – a proper library space with a specialist librarian, lesson slots and a quiet buzz at Long Break when bookworms drift in to read. Tech is there but tightly controlled; each girl has access to an iPad when needed, but they’re stored away, not clutched like emotional support devices all day.

North London Collegiate Junior ideas hub

Being on the same site as the Senior School is a huge win. From early on, the girls use the slick Performing Arts Centre for productions, and the much-talked-about Ideas Hub – a whole-school space for art, engineering, robotics and research – is gradually being woven into Junior life. It’s not just about giving them shiny kit; they’re building things, programming things, and presenting projects in the same atrium where the older girls run start-up pitches and research showcases. It makes the whole place feel like an ecosystem rather than separate silos.

Outdoor space is generous for London. There’s a dedicated First School playground for the littlies, a sprawling adventure playground for older girls, fields for sport, and – delightfully – a large tipi which the Parents’ Guild funded. This has become an outdoor classroom, campsite HQ for the new Y3 overnight camp, and, crucially, Santa’s grotto at Christmas. It’s extremely NLCS that the same structure is used for both academic projects and festive magic. 

SPORT

Sport in the Juniors is impressive, especially in netball and swimming, where the girls make national finals with pleasing regularity. The U11 netball team made it to the IAPS finals last year – no mean feat, considering the competition. Swimming is equally strong; lots of confident, capable athletes splash around these halls.

But sport isn’t all for the sporty. Cheerleading has landed with a boom and is already oversubscribed, football and lacrosse are thriving, and the whole programme has an easy, enthusiastic feel. It’s competitive in the way children naturally are, not because adults are barking at them from the sidelines. It helps that they have specialist teachers from Reception and access to Senior School facilities: the whole thing just feels bigger and more ambitious than some Preps, but without losing the sense of joy.

If your daughter hates sport with a passion, she won’t suddenly become Jessica Ennis here. But if she’s open to giving things a go, she’ll have so many opportunities that something will inevitably stick.

CREATIVE & PERFORMING ARTS

Music here is on another level – and we’re not talking about half-hearted recorder tootling either. Every pupil has twice-weekly class music, whole-school singing and choir sessions as standard. In Y2 and Y3, they can try out recorder, violin, viola and fife in small groups, choosing from a wide range of instruments for one-to-one lessons from Y3. As a result, a staggering 98% of girls have instrumental lessons, and more than 150 lessons a week are delivered by 32 visiting specialists. That is a conservatoire-level operation in a Prep school context.

There are four choirs, 12 ensembles and a frankly ridiculous list of musical achievements, from girls gaining Grade 8 by Y6 (although playing for pleasure without focusing on grades is just as encouraged and celebrated), to members of National Children’s Orchestra and Guildhall/RCM Junior Departments. Canons Choir, the flagship Junior group, recently won Overall Junior Choir of the Year at Barnardo’s National Choral Competition for the third year running. There’s a serious musical culture here.

North London Collegiate Junior students in drama lesson

Drama is everywhere, too. Every girl from Reception to Y6 gets a weekly drama lesson with a specialist teacher and appears in at least one full production each year. The littlies collaborate on a specially written play, with Y2 taking the lead roles, plus the Reception nativity and a new Y1 play about the history of the school for Founder’s Day. Higher up, each year group stages a full show – School of Rock, Wind in the Willows, Five Children and It, an immersive piece staged across the grounds, even abridged Shakespeare in its original language.

What Muddy parents will love is how holistic it is. By Y6, the girls are not just acting; they’re managing backstage, creating props and choreographing numbers, with professional designers and directors coming in to mentor them. It’s brilliant for confidence and smacks of the school taking girls’ creative leadership seriously.

Art, meanwhile, has pivoted deliberately towards more freedom and pupil ownership. The Lower School held an art exhibition where each girl produced a piece inspired by a diverse artist; every work was professionally printed, framed and displayed gallery-style before going home to be hung on actual walls, not just the fridge. First School will get the same treatment next. It’s a small detail, but very telling: the school wants them to see themselves as real artists, not just children doing crafts.

LITTLIES

The youngest NLCS pupils (Reception – Y2) have an idyllic start: small classes, specialist teachers, lots of outdoor space and an early sense of independence. It feels cosy, but there’s no dumbing down of expectations. Specialist teaching in music, PE and drama begins from Reception, which means even the littlest girls start to see school as a varied, exciting place.

The teaching approach is classic NLCS: lots of questioning, creative projects, cross-year Mixer Days where the youngest children design things with girls from other year groups, and a running theme of ‘how does this work?’ rather than ‘copy and memorise’. If your daughter thrives on being gently challenged and loves a topic project, it’s a terrific start.

If, however, she needs a slower pace and finds a busy, stimulating environment overwhelming, you may find this a bit much. It’s nurturing, yes, but not sleepy.

ACADEMICS

Yes, it’s academic and selective. It’s NLCS. But the way academics feel in the Junior School is what matters: lively, creative, discussion-based, and far more joyful than the ‘academic powerhouse’ label suggests. The Head calls it “fast-paced but calm,” and that’s not just PR puff. There is a hum about the Junior School.

STEM has been supercharged in the last couple of years. The Juniors now use VEX Go robotics kits to teach computational thinking through hands-on building and coding challenges. Y5 have dipped toes into machine learning and basic AI using Micro:bit’s CreateAI platform, training devices to recognise hand gestures and discovering in real time what happens when the data is messy or incomplete. It’s honestly more sophisticated than many senior schools.

The school is planning to host its first internal VEX Go robotics competition, and the ambition is to use the Ideas Hub to launch a national VEX Go event, which would put NLCS Juniors firmly on the map as a STEM leader, not just a music-and-English powerhouse.

On the humanities side, the Independent Research Programme is a real standout. Y6 girls choose their own big question – anything from ‘How can we stop climate change?’ to ‘What can we learn from comparing Julius Caesar to Donald Trump?’ – and work with a mentor from either Junior or Senior School. They’re taught how to research, take notes, synthesise information and present it clearly, then present their findings science-fair style in the Ideas Hub to parents and staff. It’s wildly impressive at this age and exactly the kind of skillset that pays off all the way up to Sixth Form and beyond. The plan is to roll this down into Year 5 and eventually lower, so that independent research becomes a normal part of growing up at NLCS.

Languages are given a genuinely innovative treatment. Instead of just French from age 7 and done, girls get Spanish in Y1-Y2, a newly introduced World of Languages (WoLLoW) course in Y3 that explores how different languages work around the globe, then German in Y4, Mandarin in Y5 and French in Y6. It’s deliberately about language awareness and cultural curiosity rather than fluency at this stage, and it’s very Muddy-in-a-good-way: broad-minded without being gimmicky.

Registrations open in May and close in October. Around 40-42 places are up for grabs for entry at age 4+ and 8-10 places at 7+, and occasionally places are available in other year groups, so it’s worth asking. The 4+ assessment is warm and play-based.

PASTORAL

North London Collegiate Junior student and teacher

Pastoral care at NLCS Juniors is one of its quiet superpowers. The structure is layered: every girl has a form teacher, supported by teaching assistants; Lower and First School phase leaders oversee each stage; and the wider pastoral team includes a Junior School Pastoral Deputy Head, school nurse and school counsellors. The result is that ‘someone to talk to’ isn’t a vague concept; it’s built into the timetable and the staffing model.

Personal, Social, Health and Relationships Education is delivered through a carefully sequenced programme that feels modern rather than box-ticky. Girls have regular Circle Time, and each girl has PAT – Personal Appointment Time – one-to-one check-ins with their form teacher. They’re also taught to use the Zones of Regulation framework to name and understand their emotions, which is more sophisticated than the usual traffic light systems many schools still use.

On top of that, the school uses a wellbeing tracker app for girls from Y2-Y6, which helps them reflect on how they’re feeling and gives staff a data-informed view of trends. It’s not about turning childhood into a spreadsheet; it’s about making sure quiet anxieties don’t get missed.

Whole-school culture plays a huge part too. The new Big Questions initiative encourages girls to think deeply in assemblies and form time about values, ethics and what sort of person they want to be. It dovetails neatly into the whole-school Raising Voices oracy strategy and helps even the youngest pupils practise big, open-ended thinking out loud – which is basically gold dust for their confidence.

Is it perfect? No school is. But for a place with such a strong academic profile, the pastoral provision feels detailed and genuinely caring.

SEND

The SEND approach is thoughtful and early, with a dedicated advisor supporting girls who need additional help. It’s not heavy-duty specialist provision, but it’s proactive, sensitive and well-integrated. Bright girls with mild to moderate needs will be supported; those needing highly specialist provision may be better served elsewhere.

THE HEAD

North London Collegiate Junior students and head teacher

Head of Juniors Richard Queripel is warm, thoughtful and quietly ambitious for the school. Having taught here for years before taking the helm, he knows the pulse of the place and cares deeply about balance: academic challenge and emotional warmth, innovation and play, tech and outdoor learning.

He’s refreshingly open about the realities of privilege and the need for NLCS to push harder on partnerships and service. He’s also determined to make outdoor education a bigger part of school life, and his enthusiasm for giving girls real-life independence is infectious.

He’s a natural Head: grounded, warm, slightly self-deprecating, and very clear about what matters for children.

QUIRKS

NLCS Juniors has quirks in all the right places. The pear and chocolate crumble is legendary enough that families begged for the recipe in lockdown. Staff run a secret talent show with spectacle, such as speed painting with ketchup. Themed days like Times Table Rock Stars Day, India Day and the two-week book festival keep the calendar colourful and gloriously over-the-top.

Founder’s Day is the high ceremonial moment of the year, with girls processing with daffodils (the founder’s favourite flower), reflecting on the school’s founding prayer and watching the Founder’s Day play, which is performed in both Junior and Senior Schools and has been for decades. In the school’s 175th anniversary year, the Juniors created a musical film called Our Story and performed in a collaborative concert at the Royal Institution – not your average prep-school outing.

Canonaid, the whole-school fundraising and service programme, is another big part of Junior identity. Girls help choose the charities, design the events, and understand where the money goes – whether that’s through dance competitions or bracelet-making workshops. It’s good for the world and quietly excellent character education.

WRAP AROUND CARE

Frazzled working parents breathe deep, there’s a safety net in place: Breakfast Club from 7.30am, where parents can even linger on Fridays for a cooked breakfast, and After-School Care until 5.30pm, with a packed tea including sandwiches, fruit and a drink, activities and supervised homework for older girls.

ISI REPORT

Last inspected in 2024, the school was rated Excellent for both academic achievement and personal development – the highest possible rating. Read the report here.

MOBILE PHONE POLICY

The school is reassuringly strict on phones. Junior pupils may only bring one if they’re travelling home on the main coach service, and even then, it must be a basic brick phone, not a smartphone. All phones are handed in at the start of the day and collected only after lessons or clubs. Smartwatches are banned in the Junior School.

Internet access is fully monitored and only via school devices on school Wi-Fi; pupils have no access to social media in school. Every girl and parent sign a Digital Safety Agreement each year, and the school runs webinars to help parents navigate online safety at home. Reassuringly robust.

TRANSPORT

Very good for North London and Hertfordshire families, with proximity to Edgware and Stanmore Tubes, strong bus links and a hefty school coach network. Parking/drop-off isn’t the horror show it can be at many London schools, which feels like a minor miracle.

FEES

Fees sit at £8,540 per term for 2025/26, which puts NLCS firmly in the premium bracket, though very much in line with high-performing London independents of similar calibre. The real financial comfort is that most girls move straight into the Senior School, meaning no 11+ tutoring treadmill.

WORD ON THE GROUND

Parents adore the school for its mix of intellectual fizz, kindness and fun. The consensus is that NLCS Juniors produces girls who are confident but not arrogant, thoughtful but not over-serious, articulate but not precocious. They’re bright, lively and, crucially, happy. It’s not for every child. The pace is brisk, and the environment suits the innately curious. For girls who love learning, love friendship and love being busy, it’s a winner.

THE MUDDY VERDICT

GOOD FOR: Girls who thrive on stimulation, sparkle under challenge and adore having a million opportunities.

NOT FOR: Girls who prefer slow pacing, lots of consolidation or a more inward-looking environment. This is a lively school and proudly so.

DARE TO DISAGREE? The next Junior School Open Events are: Thurs 4 June; Tues 30 June. Click here to book your spot.

North London Collegiate School, Canons Dr, Edgware HA8 7RJ. Tel: 020 8952 0912.

North London Collegiate School (Junior), Edgware, London

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