Thomas’s London Day Schools is a group of four independent co-educational preparatory schools in Battersea, Clapham, Fulham and Kensington. Thomas’s Battersea has approximately 540 pupils, ranging from reception to year eight. The school occupies a Grade 2 listed building, the former Sir Walter St John Grammar School, founded in 1700. The school was extended by the celebrated Victorian architect William Butterfield in 1859 with further extensions by Tennyson in 1913 and Denny in 1937. The Lower School block was built in 1964.
The layout of the school responded to the piece meal development. The Middle School was isolated from the Lower and Upper School and housed in a series of small class rooms; there were insufficient SEN facilities; classroom adjacencies required reorganisation; catering facilities were poor with children dining in the gym; circulation space required improvements and Lower School classrooms needed refurbishment.
A new open plan dining hall has been inserted between the 60s block and the older parts of the school, completing the enclosure of a courtyard garden. The building has a green roof and a fully glazed elevation overlooking the garden.
The 60s Lower School block was fully refurbished and extended to provide lower and middle school classrooms, collaborative teaching areas, changing rooms and SEN teaching space. The building also has a green roof. It was rendered and new glazing was installed to improve thermal performance and create a more contemporary appearance. A roof extension on the listed school building at the front of the site provided a new art room. Externally the playground was covered in astroturf and new play facilities were created outside the Reception classrooms at ground level.
Planning permission was granted in 2016. The school’s executive architects, Studio Webb, managed detail design and contract administration and achieved an exemplary quality for the project.
The revitalised school was opened in time for the academic year in September 2017, transforming the teaching environment and enhancing the learning experience for generations to come.
