History

Ravenscourt Park Preparatory School (RPPS) was founded by qualified teachers Maria and Edward Gardener in 1991. Situated next to Ravenscourt Park and just off Chiswick High Street, RPPS is a highly successful and popular school, providing education of the highest quality.

RPPS is one of four schools which form the Gardener Schools Group. Its sister school, Kew Green Preparatory School (London, TW9) was established in 2004. The Gardener Schools Group also has two senior schools, Kew House School (London, TW8) which opened in 2013 and Maida Vale School (London, W9) which opened in September 2020.

Having taught in the state sector for 20 years, Maria and Edward Gardener started a Saturday morning school for local children in their own home. Their warmth, creativity and effectiveness as teachers of small groups proved so popular, the classes quickly moved to a nearby church hall.

Listening to enthusiastic feedback from local parents, the Gardeners soon identified a need for a co-educational, non-selective independent preparatory school in West London. So, in 1991, they bought the vicarage building on Ravenscourt Avenue and RPPS was founded.

Due to the school’s caring, family-centred ethos and the demand for this type of school, RPPS soon became oversubscribed and has been highly influential in the way independent primary school education has changed in London in the last two decades.

The Gardener Schools Group is still a family company. Alongside Founder and Director of Education Maria Gardener, her son Theo Brehony is Managing Director. 

Parents at the preparatory schools consistently urged the Directors to open a co-educational secondary school for pupils aged 11 to 18 years. In 2013, Kew House School opened in the Chiswick/Brentford area. In September 2020, Maida Vale School opened in the Maida Vale/Queen's Park area. Both schools are pioneering and modern, whilst retaining the best of the traditional values in evidence at the Gardener Group’s preparatory schools.