Hereward House School, also known as HHS, is an IAPSindependentpreparatory school for boys aged 4 to 13, located in Hampstead, London on 14 Strathray Gardens, near to Swiss Cottage and Finchley Road. It prepares boys for both London day schools and London boarding schools and has awarded a number of scholarships to boys. The School is headed by Pascal Evans and was founded in 1951 by Lionel Brewester and Mary Brewester. It is split up into three main sections, the Junior School; currently headed by Rosie Bachelor, consists of Transition, Year 1 and Year 2, the Middle School; headed by Nicole Scaffidi, consists of Years 3, 4 and 5, and finally the Senior School; this section is headed by the headmaster alongside the deputy and consists of CE2 and CE1. The school teaches 171 pupils every day and employs 35 staff, 27 of whom are teaching staff. Pupils usually join the school from Transition to Year 1, but commonly join in higher years such as Year 6 of even CE2. The School was originally based at Belsize Avenue and had six pupils. This number slowly expanded until they moved to their current site in the 1960s.
School Life
Houses
Each boy is also allocated to a house, Angles, Danes, Normans and Saxons. As is customary in most preparatory schools, lively and varied competition exists between the houses, including House cricket, football, dodgeball and a sports day. Boys have the opportunity to earn "House Points", for their house. These can be earned in many ways, from good pieces of work, to helping a teacher. At the end of every half-term, the deputy head shows the boys a presentation outlining which house earned the most house points during that half-term and how much each house need to earn to be in first place.
Roles
The School can award ten roles to boys, though each boy may only have a maximum of two. Most of these are awarded to CE1s and CE2s following a class questionnaire where the boys vote for who they would like for a certain role and then an interview. Other roles can be awarded only by interviews, such as the Magazine Editor badge. The current roles are:
Prefects; Boys with this role come in early to greet arriving boys and help teachers with general tasks around the school.
Librarian and the LibrarySWAT Team; the Librarian is the head of the Library SWAT Team. The SWAT team helps to clean up the library and keep in order during reading period. To join the SWAT team it is necessary to write a letter to the Head of English and then "shadow" a member.
The Head of the Junior School and Head of Middle school roles involve going to classrooms to help children and organizing DT Days.
The Head of Music and Assistant Head of Music are two boys who invigilate music tasks around the school, including setting up the Grand Biennial Concert and picking singers for plays.
The Head of The School Council and School Council Representative are roles in the Student Council where boys vote for things to be added to the school. The Head of The School Council is the person who decides what to add from the Class Representatives and then discusses it with the teacher. School Council Representatives are elected when a class writes down the boy they want as a representative on a ballot sheet. The boy with the most votes is elected.
The Magazine Editor is a boy is chosen to edit the school's termly magazine The Hereward Hotshot. The role is acquired following an interview with the deputy head. He will choose who he thinks is most fit for the role. Everyone else who was interviewed becomes a co-editor, helping take photos, writing articles and general reporting.
In late 2019, the Charity Captain role was added. The boy who has this role is in charge of helping with charities in the school. This boy is responsible for donating money to charities and helping with fundraisers.
Uniform
All boys of all ages have to wear the school uniform. Some of the uniform is optional, or dependent on what time of year it is. The main uniform is, a grey Clydella shirt, a white and blue striped tie, the black school blazer embroidered with a Fleur-de-lis, dark grey trousers, black socks and black leather shoes. In summer, the clydella shirt may be substituted for a light grey Aertex shirt and in rare circumstances, the tie may be removed. For Games, the sports uniform must be worn. For football, this consists of the blue and white striped football jersey which has the school's crest printed on it, navy shorts, the school tracksuit, blue and white socks as well as football boots. For cricket, the uniform consists of a branded cricket shirt, pullover and trousers. It is also optional to wear the school cap or scarf where the conditions are suitable. Five different ties can be awarded, one for each house representative, and ties for the head and co-head of music.
Sports
Hereward House plays a number of sports and have three lessons every week dedicated to it. These are: PE, usually in this lesson, boys play football, cricket or other sports related activities. The second lesson is Games, though each section of the school does games differently, they all have three periods dedicated to it on Tuesday and Friday. During spring and summer, cricket is played. During autumn and winter, football is played.
Football
Hereward House School has a very successful record against other schools. Football is most commonly played during Games at Swiss Cottage Astro-Turf or Hampstead Heath Extension and Brondesbury Cricket Grounds. Boys are separated into the A Team, the B Team and the C Team depending on their football skills. Coaches allocate boys to their teams while watching their performance at games. Occasionally the school plays matches against other schools, each team playing against the suitable rival team. House Football happens every term. Houses play each other and progress towards the top of the leaderboard with eventually one house winning the "House Football Cup".
Cricket
Cricket is played during spring and summer at either Brondesbury Cricket Grounds or Hampstead Heath Extension. Similar to Football, boys are separated into A and B teams based on their performance at games. Every month boys will compete against rival teams from other schools with coaches recording the amount of runs scored. House Cricket is also played, where Houses progress to the top of the leaderboard. The house that wins the final match wins the "House Cricket Cup" as well as 100 house points.
Cross country is frequently done at the Hampstead Heath Extension, unlike in other sports played by the school, there are no teams and anyone can volunteer to compete in the Inter-School Cross Country. The Hereward House Inter-School Cross-Country is an event in March at Hampstead Heath Extension. Schools are invited from across London to compete for titles in under-eleven and under-thirteen races. This event is one of the largest inter-school competitions in London.
