The Perse Preparatory School is a co-educational prep school

Preparatory school (UK)

In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...

 located in Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is the junior day school for The Perse School

The Perse School

The Perse Upper School is an independent secondary co-educational day school in Cambridge, England. The school was founded in 1615 by Dr Stephen Perse, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and has existed on several different sites in the city before its present home on Hills...

 (known as the upper school). It is situated in its own grounds around 1½ miles from the upper school and is totally self-contained. As of September 2007, the school accepted girls at 7+ and in September 2008 will accept girls at 9+. Currently, the headmaster is Gareth Jones and in 2009 the school held approximately 250 pupils. Many of the pupils go into the upper school

The Perse School

The Perse Upper School is an independent secondary co-educational day school in Cambridge, England. The school was founded in 1615 by Dr Stephen Perse, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and has existed on several different sites in the city before its present home on Hills...

 at age 11.

History

The Perse School itself was founded in 1615 by Dr Stephen Perse

Stephen Perse

Stephen Perse was an English academic and philanthropist.He was probably educated at Norwich School, and took his B.A. degree at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1569, where he was later elected to a fellowship...

, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Gonville and Caius College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is often referred to simply as "Caius" , after its second founder, John Keys, who fashionably latinised the spelling of his name after studying in Italy.- Outline :Gonville and...

, although the Preparatory School was not built until 1910. In 1950 it moved to its current location in Trumpington Road

Trumpington Road

Trumpington Road is an arterial road in southeast central Cambridge, England. It runs between the junction of Trumpington Street and Lensfield Road at the northern end to the junction of the High Street in the village of Trumpington and Long Street at the southern end...

, Cambridge, formerly one of the old upper school boarding houses.

The building which the school uses was originally called Leighton House. It was built for Robert Sayle

Robert Sayle

Robert Sayle, named after the man who founded it, was a department store in Cambridge, England belonging to the John Lewis Partnership. The original Robert Sayle store opened in 1840 in St Andrew's Street and continued to trade until 2004, when it moved to temporary premises in Burleigh Street...

who owned a city centre department store and who moved into the house in the late 1860s.

Structure

In each year, pupils who enter at 7+ are put into to three mixed ability forms: 3a, 3alpha or 3aleph in which they remain throughout the school. Those pupils who enter before September 2007 are organised into two different forms.

Houses

Each pupil is placed into a house when they join the school, either Barbarians, Corinthians. or Foresters. The school has a house point system which gives pupils the opportunity to win house points for positive contributions to school life or to lose them for negative behavior.