The Stewart Bilingual School

A tiny English-French bilingual primary on Oxford Gardens in Notting Hill, also operating under the La Petite Ecole Bilingue brand, with around 45 children aged 2 to 11 across the whole school.

Founded in 1978 by Anne Henderson-Stewart, who still leads the school, it runs a dual curriculum combining elements of the National Curriculum for England with the French national programme. The very small roll means mixed-age classes in places and a family-style atmosphere that long-standing French and Francophone families in west London come back to generation after generation.

Parents praise the close attention each child receives, the friendliness of the staff, and visible progress in both languages. The constraints are obvious from the size: minimal specialist facilities, no peer year groups in the conventional sense, and limited capacity, so places usually go through the network rather than open advertising. Suits families who actively want a small, French-leaning environment over a larger international school.

• Parents who left detailed comments praise the bilingual model, close community, warm teachers, and strong academic and social adjustment for children.
• The positive comments also mention extracurricular options, lunches, and a small-school feel that helped expatriate families settle.
• Independent review volume is very small, and one major school directory has no submitted reviews, so the signal should be treated as thin.