This website is based on the Guide to Independent Schools, edited by Jenny Lees-Spalding and Klaus Boehm. It is an 800-page book, which has been
published since 1988 and updated annually. Now published on this entirely new website, its search function allows you to navigate your way around
the vast amount of information about schools, narrow your research and focus on precisely what you want, and so make your own shortlist of schools.
The Guide to Independent Schools is hugely well respected by parents. It is unashamedly a consumer book. To be precise, it is a book for
parents looking for an independent secondary school for their child. Its premise is that a child will flourish in some schools and flop in others,
because no school can do equally well for all types of children.
How to use the site.
The greater part of this site has objective and detailed information on over 500 independent secondary schools. It includes all the schools affiliated
to the HMC, GSA and SHMIS in the UK and a handful in continental Europe (all of which teach in English). Find the schools that interest you by using
Search.
In addition, the site includes invaluable information about independent secondary education and explains common terms, structures and financial help
available - streaming, SHMIS, sex education, scholarships and so on - see Parental Resources
Our new site aims to help you make your own shortlist of schools. After that it's down to you to look hard at each one - you'll need to make your own
enquiries, scrutinise school websites and prospectuses for yourself and, crucially, VISIT the schools. It's your judgement of what best suits your
child that counts.
Start searching here.
Klaus was educated at an independent progressive school, followed by The Judd School, Tonbridge and Peterhouse, Cambridge.
He has developed a wide range of reference books with a number of publishers, both paper and electronic. Titles include the Dictionary of the
History of Science, British Archives, The Royal & Ancient Golfer's Handbook, The Macmillan Nautical Almanac and the prize-winning The European
Community.
Jenny has long been interested in education and, particularly, the individual students and consumers of the system. Coming
from a naval family, she attended a state primary school in Scotland, the Naval School in Malta and boarding schools in England. Oxford University
was a liberation.
The content of this website is based on the well-established Guide to Independent Schools - an 800 page book also
edited by Jenny Lees-Spalding and Klaus Boehm. Now in its 18th edition, it is in three sections.
