Arnold House School

1 Loudoun Road, NW8 OLH

When asked what sort of boy does well here, head Vivian Thomas says: ‘A contributor.’ The approach is based on carrots rather than sticks: as well as the usual team colours for sports, there are ‘citizenship bars’ for contributions to the life of the school, ties for achievement and special badges for hard work. This hard work pays off, with leavers heading for top senior schools like Westminster and St Paul’s. The sports facilities are the envy of other schools: these lucky boys are bussed out to seven acres of playing fields in Edgware, and the teams are correspondingly successful. We give top marks for AH’s informative and entertaining website, where the curious can see Year 6’s French homework, view pupils’ artwork and read guidance on how to do Latin translations (note the last instruction – ‘Never write nonsense!’).