Greenfield School was established in 1935 and began life as a co-educational junior school. Records show that the site had been used as a school since 1922, but the name “Greenfield School” wasn’t introduced until Mrs Alys Wilkinson took over c.1935.
After Alys’ death in 1946, her husband took over the running of the school. But by 1948 the school was far from thriving after a devastating fire had broken out in the loft space. There are very few records that survive from this period, and we assume that many of them may have been destroyed in the fire.
In 1948, Mr Wilkinson sold the equipment and goodwill of Greenfield School to Miss Hicks and Miss Pearce, and they rented the property the school occupied from the estate of Miss Pearce’s grandfather, Henry Quartermaine.
In 1954, they opened a girls’ senior school in Miss Hick’s house on Brooklyn Road as an addition to Greenfield Junior School. Also in 1954, Miss Hicks and Miss Pearce, along with their friend, Margaret Dixon, set up the Ockenden Venture; a charity dedicated to assisting children and young people displaced by war and to provide them with an education. Many of the children who came to Woking as part of the Ockenden Venture were educated at Greenfield School.
Ruth Hicks was Principal of Greenfield School from 1948 to 1982. She passed away in 1987 and the school, which was by this time a charitable trust, continued to operate as a co-educational junior school on Constitution Hill, and a girls’ senior school on Brooklyn Road, for the next 5 years.
Joyce Pearce passed away in 1985 and, in recognition of a lifetime of charitable work, a Service of Thanksgiving took place at Westminster Abbey on 18th September the same year. The choir at the service included Greenfield School pupils.
Between 1982 and 1989, Miss Ailsa Moore was Headmistress of Greenfield School. Ailsa had met Joyce Pearce when she had invited Joyce to speak about her work with the Ockenden Venture at a school assembly. Joyce persuaded Ailsa to move to Woking and take on the Headship at Greenfield, so that Ruth Hicks could take a step back. In 1989, Ailsa left Greenfield to assume the role of Director of the Ockenden Venture.
Greenfield continued to be led by women; first Mrs Jenny Becker and later Mrs Janis Radcliffe in the role of Headmistress and Mrs Linda Richardson, who began her tenure as Bursar in 1989 and continued in the role for 28 years.
In 1992, the difficult decision was made to close the girls’ senior school. With so many schools on larger sites attracting both boys and girls further afield, the decision was made to close the senior school and move the junior school to Brooklyn Road. Both Ockenden House and the school site on Constitution Hill have since been sold and replaced with more modern housing, but the name Ockenden lives on in the road names of the properties built on the land.
Between 1992 and 2010, Greenfield School continued to operate as a one-form entry preparatory school on Brooklyn Road. The nurturing and caring ethos remained, and the school continued to welcome children from all walks of life, embracing diversity in all its forms. In September 2010, Mrs Tania Botting was appointed as Headmistress.
Many changes were made to the Brooklyn Road site over the years, including new classrooms, music rooms and many reconfigurations to the internal layout. Investment in the curriculum, timetable and staffing ensured that the children at Greenfield were receiving the very best education available. After Nine years, Mrs Botting had taken Greenfield from strength to strength.
After 27 happy years at Brooklyn Road, the opportunity arose for the school to move to a much larger site on Old Woking Road. This generous plot of land hand long been home to schools and lent itself perfectly to Greenfield with its welcoming school building, fabulous forest schools and plenty of scope for development. In September 2019, the school opened its doors in its new home and started another new chapter as a two-form entry school.
Life at Old Woking Road seemed too good to be true! The children and parents who came across from Brooklyn Road were delighted with all the space on offer and the security of the familiar staff and leadership meant that the new buildings felt like home in no time at all. Classes filled up fast and work on a new nursery were well underway when the pandemic hit and forced all schools to close their doors. But the Greenfield community was undeterred and, with the continued support of the parent body, the school was able to deliver their very special education via online lessons for the entirety of the enforced lockdown.
It was due to this unwavering support that the school was able to move ahead with plans to develop the new school site and, in January 2021, Greenfield Little School opened its doors. This 50 week annual provision offers a Greenfield education to children from 6 months upwards and gives our families a one-drop solution to childcare and education.
Work on the larger school development began in March 2021 and has given the children their ‘daily digger fix’ as they watch the building take shape. The new extension will include a 3 court becomes 3 badminton court sports hall, extra classrooms, a spacious dining room and some specialist facilities for music, drama and technology. In addition, the grounds will be developed to include netball courts. Due for completion in Spring 2022, this extra space will give our children greater opportunities to discover and develop their passions.
We firmly believe that it is the people that make a school feel like home and not the building it exists within, and we will ensure that wherever Greenfield exists, now or in the future, feels like home to all those who enter. By a strange twist of fate however, the school’s new home on Old Woking Road brings us back to the beginning of Miss Hick’s teaching career in Woking; the site which was once the Woking Girls’ Grammar School where she was Deputy Head.
In April 2022, we opened the doors to our new building and our children and staff quickly expanded into their new spacious facilities. With dedicated spaces for performance, music recitals, sports games and more, we have been able to deliver our educational provision in an enriched setting. With outdoor playing space on the way, our journey continues, and we look forward to sharing our facilities with the wider Greenfield community.
In June 2022, we were thrilled to learn that Greenfield had been chosen as the Independent Prep School of the Year at the TES Awards 2022. We are incredibly proud and humbled that the work we do has been recognised in this way, and are more excited than ever for what is yet to come.
Greenfield has endured many challenges in its long lifetime, but this continued history of change reassures us that fresh opportunity is not to be feared but should be embraced; ensuring that Greenfield School may continue to provide an outstanding education in Woking for another 85 years, or more.
Little School Nursery is split into two rooms: Fledglings (6mths-2) and Owls (2-3). They are large, bright and airy spaces, which enable our dedicated staff to provide the very best resources, care and learning opportunities to the children.
Fledglings have their own dedicated outdoor play area for easy indoor-outdoor access, whereas Owls children utilise the Early Years play area direct from their own classroom.
The Science lab is located on the first floor of the Discovery Building and is equipped with lab benches and stools to aid experiments and research. You will often find the tables covered in resources and eager teams surrounding their group work as they test and record their theories.
Science topics are covered in Reception and throughout Lower School, with specialist teaching taking place from Year 3. The children cover chemistry, physics and biology, as well as having termly STEM afternoons lead by our Head of Science.
The DT and Art rooms are ideally situated next to one another. These generously sized spaces enable the children to take on challenging artistic, design and construction projects and utilise our array of excellent resources.
Our The kiln in the Art room is a particular favourite of the children, and the DT room is equipped with ovens and work benches to enable effective teaching of cookery and food technology, which is delivered as part of the DT curriculum.
Our Pre-Prep classrooms are situated in the heart of the school, nestled between the familiar Early Years Department with the Prep School classrooms just across the Zen Garden. This gives our Lower School children a feeling of complete safety, whilst also placing them as the most senior children within the Pre-Prep and the added independence and maturity that brings.
The classrooms are spacious and airy, with access straight into both the Zen Garden and the atrium library. Dedicated cloakroom areas free up space in the classrooms, where interactive whiteboards and suitably sized tables and chairs create an optimum environment for teaching the children of tomorrow.
Our Early Years and Reception classrooms enjoy access straight onto their own play area, which has age-appropriate climbing equipment, toys and resources to help support their development.
In the classrooms, you will find plenty of colour and inspiration, with high-quality furniture and easy access to sinks and toilets – creating the optimum environment for young children. Every classroom is equipped with an interactive whiteboard and the children are also able to make use of school iPads from a young age.
The Early Years Education we deliver at Greenfield is ambitious and carefully sequenced to help the children build on their learning over time.
The Sports Hall offers Greenfield children a superb facility in which to exercise, train and compete. The enormous space can be used as a full 3-court sports hall or partitioned off to create multiple teaching spaces.
Every child in the school makes use of the sports hall on a regular basis. PE lessons are taught in this space and enable our children to engage fully in all PE activities, regardless of the weather. In addition, our separate gymnasium houses our gym equipment and offers another dedicated space for younger children to exercise or for our gym squad to practice.
Bi-folding doors enable us to bring the outside in and gallery viewing windows from the first-floor corridor offer a bird’s eye view of the antics below!
The Prep Classrooms are found in the newer wing of the building known as the ‘Independence Building’. As you might expect, the classrooms have a more focused feel when lessons are taking place but the walls and display boards are adorned with the many excellent and imaginative pieces of work produced by our Middle and Upper School children.
The Prep Classrooms are located closest to the Sports Hall and Performing Arts Department and the Middle School rooms have direct access into the Zen Garden. On the first floor, the Upper School have a common room area directly outside their form rooms, which offers the perfect space for group work and breakout sessions.
All the children in the Prep School utilise all the specialist classrooms and move about the school frequently.
Performing Arts have always been a strength of the school, and the new addition of the Performing Arts Department has allowed this to blossom further.
Cleverly situated along one wing of the building, the double-height music room, sound-proof music practice pods and the drama and dance studio offer the very best opportunities to the children to enhance their skillsets. At the opposite end of the corridor, you will find backstage access to the stage.
Music and Drama are taught by specialist staff from Year 1 upwards and the vast majority of children take on additional instrumental or singing tuition with one of our talented peripatetic teachers.
The Multimedia Suite is a huge asset in our mission to educate children in the ever-changing world of technology. A full class set of desktops compliment iPads and laptops that are available for use around the school. VR headsets and green screen recording equipment are also housed here.
The large room offers plenty of space for the children to gather, showcase their inventions or view others work on the big screen. Plans for a professional-grade recording studio are earmarked for one corner of the room, as well as further investments into the technology on offer to support the children’s learning.
Two full-size, enclosed and floodlit outdoor netball courts provide a superb facility for netball, and also offer an outdoor tennis facility.
In our striking double-height Dining Room, the children enjoy Breakfast Club, Lunch and Tea Time in a spacious and modern atmosphere. With wooden flooring and bi-fold doors, the versatile space is used for functions, celebrations and events throughout the year.
At the back of the school field sits a shaded woodland area, where children of all ages enjoy outdoor learning. Little School children develop their mobility in the natural play area, complete with wheel barrows and a makeshift kitchen. As part of their curriculum, children in Reception and upwards enjoy lessons in the Forest School where they learn exciting new skills including orienteering, wilderness survival and identifying plants and creatures.
Greenfield has the advantage of hugely accessible, useable outside space. The school has large playing fields suitable for football and tag rugby, as well as cricket and athletics. Large enough for multiple year groups to be outside at any time, the space affords the children opportunities to host home games and tournaments throughout the year.