"My wife and I were state educated and to be honest we hadn't considered independent education for our son until relatively late in the process.

As it got closer to us needing to make a decision I was passing time on my commute and looked up local independent schools without any great expectation of sending our son to one.

I was not born locally and therefore didn't know what was on offer and was surprised to find a number of options within a reasonable distance of our home.

Location was an immediate draw because as a family we love the Great Outdoors. Some further reading and a meeting with the Headmistress further cemented the idea that Steephill was the sort of establishment where we would love our son to be educated. The vision of those in charge, the small class sizes plus the politeness of the children as we visited their classrooms gave an overriding friendly family feel which all came together to make it a very easy decision in the end.

We don't want our son to grow up too quickly but a few months into his new life at the Steephill Pre-school we know we have made a wise decision which he will benefit from in the years to come."

Every three to six years the school is inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI). All schools must be inspected but as we belong to the Independent Schools Association (ISA) this is carried out by the ISI rather than Ofsted. The process is similar however.

There are five areas of inspection and each one is given a rating of excellent (the same as outstanding), good, satisfactory or poor.

In summary the judgements for the Steephill School 2013 inspection were:

Pastoral Care - Excellent

Social, moral, spiritual and cultural - Excellent

Curriculum and extra-curricular - Excellent

Teaching and assessment - Good - with lots of excellent

Management and governance - Good - with lots of excellent

We are very proud of our inspection report and hope you enjoy it.

Please click below to view the Compliance Inspection Report carried out by ISI in March 2016. This Inspection centres on compliance to the statutory requirements of the government and the standards of the Independent Schools Standards and Regulations.