Shrewsbury Prepatoria: The first English school to cancel term times and open nearly all year round

Shrewsbury Prepatoria was launched by headmistress Jane Smalley last September and within weeks was rated as outstanding by Ofsted inspectors.

Based at Park Plaza, the ethos of the school centres around play.

Although the independent school’s fees are £6,540 a year, Jane argues parents can save around half that money by avoiding astronomical peak season flights and holidays, and extortionate childcare. Their children, meanwhile, benefit from a slower pace, more focus on play — and no homework.

Jane has been passionate about the education system since her own unhappy school days and is keen to espouse the benefits. “It’s a no brainer,” she said.

“Why shouldn’t we have schools that meet the needs of families?”

The school has just 11 pupils aged four to six in Reception and Year 1 (although from next year it will extend to Year 2) and looks more like a home than an educational hub. For more children are on the books ready to enrol for next September and Jane is confident that the 22-pupil capacity will soon be reached.

Impact

The 59-year-old founded the school as a nursery in 2013, after working as a local authority independent consultant for local authorities.

She quit her job as a reception teacher, sold a holiday villa in Turkey to fund the project and adopted the Reggio Emilia approach, an Italian educational philosophy that favours experimental, child-centred learning.

Jane’s plan to abolish term times only happened later, and ‘by accident,’ after she applied for Department for Education guidance on how to open an independent school in 2017.

They told her that schools didn’t need specific term times as long as children have the minimum requirement of 190 days a year that constitutes full-time education. Jane is keen to stress that the current length of school holidays stems from the Victorian era, when children had to come out of school to pick crops.

Although Jane started off allowing pupils to take up to 10 weeks’ holiday, she has now cut to six weeks for more learning.

The school is also closed for four weeks over the Christmas and Easter period.

Finding staff wasn’t a challenge and they are paid more pro rata according to the extra weeks they work.

“Being open all year long, and seeing the impact on the children, I think — why isn’t this being offered to every family?” she said.