This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
Breaking news on the London school scene: Alleyn’s is staging a coup. Yup, poor old North Bridge House is finally being eaten by the unstoppable force that is the Dulwich day school beloved by Wandsworth London hedge funders, celebrity nepo babies and worse.
As of 2026, the North Bridge House sites in Regent’s Park and Hampstead will be colonised by Alleyn’s and shall thereafter be known as Alleyn’s Regent’s Park (prep only) and Alleyn’s Hampstead.
The latter will go all the way from age two to 18 — for all those mothers who are panicking that their nine-month-old may not make it through eight-plus, eleven-plus or common entrance.
I do not judge these women. If I could have organised Hector’s entire education whilst he was under a year old, I would have. You can tell a lot from how they respond to “Wind the Bobbin Up” (in Hector’s case, not at all).
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Alleyn’s will periodically cull any weak links. But I suspect the grand tradition of the slowest pupils in any class having been in the preparatory department is still going strong.
I know about this (presumably hostile) takeover because Alleyn’s put a flyer through our front door yesterday just as Hector gears up for his final term at prep school following a white-knuckled common entrance process.
The Alleyn’s takeover was met with mixed feelings chez Savage-Gore
Like I said, if only I’d known. I could have driven to either site in 20 minutes, and combined it with a visit to Daniel Galvin.
The Alleyn’s takeover was met with mixed feelings chez Savage-Gore. On the one hand, I have my own triggering memories of Alleyn’s girls (was there anything worse, as a single-sex school pupil, than meeting girls who were at school with boys?).
As such, I wish Alleyn’s to remain where it belongs — firmly south of the river. On the other, I’m delighted to rub Will’s face in further evidence that nobody (including an entire school) ever moves from north to south London. It is a strictly one-way street.
In other SW news, my friend Lydia is panicking over JAGs vs Putney High. I’ve told her it makes no difference; it’s hardly like she’s deliberating between Gordonstoun and the school in Adolescence.
But because her daughter was offered a scholarship to both we aren’t going to hear the end of it until the sixth form, when the dilemma will switch to Oxford or Harvard.
Speaking of Adolescence, Will has got in a flap about emojis. Having been a liberal user of the deeply basic “crying laughing” face (and even on occasion the crazy sideways crying laughing face), he was appalled to discover that this did not mark him out as down with the kids. I could have told him that tweens prefer a skull when amused, because they’re “dying” (laughing), but it took Netflix to convince him.
Like everyone, Will’s also panicking about the manosphere. Now, in a wild bid to provide “positive male role models” he has signed Hector up for judo sessions with Zach, the PT he’s in awe of at the gym.
So we now have a man who looks like he should be on Love Island rolling around in the garden, encouraging Hector to grapple with him.
Worse, Minnie and Lyra are obsessed. I caught them spying on the entire thing from the loft, and then emerging in full hair and make up as he left. Hector found this hilarious and vowed to tell Zach at the next judo session. Cue lots of enraged squealing. Yay. So much for promoting respect between the sexes.
