All together now
IT was a rite of passage that remained unchanged for generations: from short trousers to tailcoats, via Common Entrance. Siblings might attend two, three, even four different schools, with parents clocking up hundreds of miles as they criss-crossed the country for matches and exeats. Even before the great disruptor of Covid, that time-honoured tradition was beginning to pall.
Schools that can cater for the whole family aren’t new—Stonyhurst’s prep dates from the 1800s, Bedales founded its pre-prep in the 1950s—but the pandemic has accelerated a trend for senior and junior schools to consolidate (), including some big names. Within the past two years, Rugby in Warwickshire has merged with feeder prep Bilton Grange, Charterhouse in Surrey with
