Celebrating 50 years of Love · Care · Excellence
Over 50 years, Herne Hill School has grown from a small church basement nursery into a thriving school community rooted in love, care and excellence. Founded on friendship, determination and optimism, its story is one of vision, resilience and generations of children flourishing together.The Birth of Herne Hill School
By Phyll Bennett and Chris Ratsey
1976…
It all happened 50 years ago but we never planned to become an actual grown-up school!! Our names are Phyll Bennett and Chris Ratsey and this is the story of the beginnings of Herne Hill School! It first began in Chris’ house in Half Moon Lane, where Chris and her friend Josephine started a nursery as they couldn’t find one they liked for their own children! A little while later Phyll and her family moved to Herne Hill when Garry, her husband, became the Vicar of Herne Hill. Phyll was looking for a suitable nursery and chanced upon Herne Hill Nursery.
Phyll and Chris became excellent friends and life went on for a year or two until Chris’ husband, Dr David, secured a job away from Herne Hill. Where was the nursery to go? Who would take Chris’ place when she moved? Well, luckily the Vicarage had a very big basement which did need a bit of attention!! The parents were thrilled that the nursery of 10 children could carry on so they made the basement ’fit for purpose’.
Phyll took Chris’ place. So life moved on but there were new changes afoot! Josephine was offered a headship at Virgo Fidelis and left; luckily Chris wanted to return to nursery duties and yet again the nursery was secured!!!
We became very popular and soon were looking for more space. A large room upstairs in the Vicarage seemed to suit requirements. We were able to split the age groups into rising 3s and rising 4s. These groups were mornings only but soon we were able to accommodate children in the afternoons as well. We now had 70 children. This arrangement continued until 1985 when a group of parents asked if it would be possible for us to extend our provision into school age.
And so it came to pass on a very snowy dark evening in January 1986we held a meeting for interested parents in the church. To our surprise over a 100 came! So, we thought, let’s give it a whirl. We didn’t have a clue how to finance the project but a chance chat with a parent whose children were in the school, Margaret Coombe, changed that! ‘I know how you can do it’ she said confidently – and so she did and became our Accounts Director. Her husband Christopher, a lawyer, was also instrumental in getting the project off the ground with his legal help, which continued through the years ahead.
All was going well except – where shall this school, now with 100 plus children, be situated? We, with our husbands, decided to go ahead ’How hard can it be to obtain suitable premises?’ Garry thought we could have our first class in the room at the back of the Church Hall, with the Church Council’s blessing.
Herne Hill Nursery had become a Pre-Prep School and a head teacher was appointed, the wonderful Mrs Tabone.
Finding a building proved more difficult than we imagined. If we found suitable premises we then had to apply for ’change of use’. We were not successful – so where shall we locate the year 1s? Again Garry had a plan – ’We’ll rent the church hall for the day-time’ – and we did. The next few years saw 2 classes in the hall (made up each day with screens), one in the church and one in the vestry – but still no premises. All this time the search went on. We moved port-a-cabins into the garden to relieve some of the class-rooms. We called these buildings our ‘Miracles’ and so they were. Lunch times saw us scouring the local area. When we found a suitable looking building we posted a note through the door. No luck. During this time Garry was offered a job elsewhere and the family moved out but thankfully we were able to rent the vicarage from the diocese.
Eventually there was a little light in our house-hunting search. The diocese wasn’t going to accommodate another vicar in the house, so we could buy it. This did take about 4 years but was, as you see, successful. Phew!
We have tried to follow Mother Teresa of Norwich – a medieval saint’s teaching that ’All shall be well’. It doesn’t mean you don’t have some difficult times – just be optimistic, be hopeful and in the end, ’All shall be well’.
And it is well.
We built Mulberry and the loo block in 1996 and added the conservatory in 1998. By this time we had 290 lovely children. In 2002 we handed the reins to the school’s new owner – Dominik.
Coming of age and thriving
by Dominik Magyar
In November 2002, with and thanks to the support of my family, I had the privilege of taking over from the “Joint Principals” Phyll and Chris and become the new “Director” of Herne Hill School.
We clicked as soon as we met in spring 2002, mutually realising that we were totally aligned in terms of values, philosophies on raising and educating young children and the approach required to successfully oversee a highly people-intensive organisation the size of Herne Hill School.
What Phyll and Chris had established was self-evidently unique and fantastic. Still, even though they were generously willing to help with transition and guidance for as long as desired, it was not a foregone conclusion that it could be sustained without their daily involvement.
With hindsight, it is clear that Vivien Tabone, the School’s first teacher in 1986 and then Headteacher, played a huge “continuity lynchpin” role in this regard, supported by her two part-time Deputy Heads Jane Beales and Denise Lawson and by the rest of the amazing team.
Thanks to Viv’s unwavering dedication and support until she retired in 2007, and subsequently to her equally fabulous Headteacher successors Jane Beales (until her retirement in 2016) and (since then) Ngaire Telford, we were able to build on all of the School’s virtues established by Phyll and Chris whilst continuously evolving its provision to become ever more “excellent”.
The ethos of Love · Care · Excellence has remained at the heart of everything, together with the School’s friendly, family-feel atmosphere, the constant drive for fun and joy to nurture renewal, purpose and happiness, as well as the embrace of the outdoors and of life in general.
All of us, including Anne Thompson, who has been the Bursar and a stalwart member of the Senior Leadership Team since 2003, have also always shared the conviction that the School’s staff and their expertise, commitment and enthusiasm are actually its greatest success factor as it is they who provide that love, care and excellent education on a daily basis.
Although the staff have unquestionably been the School’s most important asset, having available the best possible facilities was also necessary for them to create that paramount conducive learning environment. This realisation drove a significant number of investments over the years in terms of physical enhancements, including:
- Extending the Mulberry building in 2005-006 to enable moving the Pre-Reception classes from the top of the Vicarage to the ground floor for direct outdoors access and creating larger classrooms on the first floor.
- Clearing the woodland area rented from Dulwich Estate from being a garden waste dumping ground for abutting Ruskin Walk and Carver Road neighbours and turning its impenetrable, ivy and bramble overgrown state into today’s unique outdoor learning and recreation space, secured for the long-term through a freehold purchase in 2018.
- Enlarging the accessible playground area ahead of constructing in 2014-16the Oak building with its modern multi-purpose hall and kitchen in the basement, large classroom on the ground floor and canopied outdoor space between Mulberry and Oak.
- Purchasing in 2019 the freehold of 99 Herne Hill and completely renovating the site to create a state-of-the-art dedicated Kindergarten from spring 2021, which in turn freed up space at the main site for a fourth Pre-Reception class.
- Enhancing the main site woodland area through the creation of naturalistic activity centres including “pebble land”, log trail, “coliseum” gathering and fire pit area, outdoor woodwork workshop and running trail.
Among these enhancements, the greatest impact on the School’s provision undoubtedly came from building Oak and inaugurating “99”. The former ended assemblies, plays, sports and packed lunches in the old Church Hall and opened up the entirely new provision dimensions of hot lunches and “food education” for the children. And the latter solidified Herne Hill School as a focused, pre-eminent provider of Early Childhood Education (ECE) with three carefully managed transitions, from the “home from home” Kindergarten setting to the two two-year stages of Reception Cycle and Key Stage 1 at the main site. Here, the children can grow to be the oldest at the school, thereby honing their confidence and leadership and social responsibility skills, in a safe and enclosed environment that is nevertheless large enough for them to blossom.
In spite of the magnitude of these enhancements, the possibly greatest hallmark that has defined the School’s evolution over the past 20+ years is how much new research has come out since 2002 regarding the importance of the early years.
Science has now unequivocally established that the worldwide recognised educational phase of ECE is the most crucial in a child’s life and coincides exactly with Herne Hill School’s 2+ to 7+ provision. In this period, all the foundations are laid for a healthy, happy, balanced and successful life – including one’s emotional intelligence as well as all “soft” personal, social, emotional and executive function skills. Furthermore, significant advances have been made in devising curriculum scheme adaptations and teaching and learning tweaks that foster a child’s most effective holistic development, preparing them to thrive in a world with AI.
Today, we have the most formidable team of staff led by Ngaire and her expert, dynamic team of Middle Leaders who are keen to innovate and further evolve our specialist offering. Times are changing faster than ever, necessitating greater and more thoughtful adaptations than ever, whilst remaining firmly anchored in our historic ethos and values. What an exciting challenge and opportunity, especially when one can build on the foundational pillars laid by Phyll and Chris!
Thank you for having been, and continuing to be, part of this extraordinary history and journey!
