Education Consultancy
Pre-School and School Advisory
Fees on application
Our advisory service is designed to support families relocating to the UK, moving within the UK, or seeking expert guidance on their local or regional pre-schools and schools.
The advisory service is strategic, evidence-informed, and knowledge-rich, requiring deep listening on our behalf to match the requirements and abilities of your child and family to the best and most appropriate pre-schools or schools in your chosen area.
The families we work with are either flexible on location and wish to know the best pre-schools or schools in a wider geographical area. Or, they have already chosen where they want to live and wish to find suitable pre-schools or schools in a specific area.
We also assist families who have missed admissions deadlines and require placements at short notice, as well as those considering boarding schools and seeking guidance unbound by geographical constraints.
Depending on your requirements, through our defined service we can either help you choose between pre-schools or schools you have already applied to, or we can conduct a wider search to present you with a carefully curated selection of schools that align with your child’s character, abilities, hobbies, and your family’s aspirations.
For those that require more handholding, we also offer a concierge service, supporting you through your admissions journey without limitation. This service is highly valued by international families living in the UK, those planning their child’s entire educational journey, and expectant mothers in central London who wish to maximise their chances of securing places at the most sought after schools in the capital through our ‘register at birth’ service.
Onboarding
At the point of contacting ESB, we will book a complementary discovery call to introduce ourselves, learn more about you and your child, and discuss our services as well as our fees and any further questions you may have about our school search and advisory service.
Getting to know you
You will receive a document to complete in advance of our first consultation where you will be asked to share information about your child, your family, and your educational preferences. During the first consultation, we will then discuss your individual requirements, your aspirations for your child, and the next steps of our school search and advisory service.
Getting to know your child
If age appropriate and desired, we will arrange for your child (ages 6 and above) to complete the APT free-of-charge to give us an up-to-date indication of their academic potential and their suitability to their future schools. We will also request to see your child's latest school report (if available) before we begin the school search.
Your first consultation
We will discuss the information you have shared with me and consider your individual requirements, your aspirations for your child, where they sit academically (if appropriate), and the next steps of our school search and advisory service. If required, we will also give you a detailed overview of the UK’s nuanced educational landscape so you are fully aware of the options available to you.
Your bespoke list of schools
Once the school search is complete, you will be presented with your bespoke list of up to 6 suitable schools as well as an overview or ‘deep dive’ into each school for further discussion. We will have already been in contact with each school to confirm that they have a place available for your child, and we will have ascertained the speed at which you will need to register them as well as their admissions process to maximise your chances of securing a place at each school.
Over to you
From this point onwards, having presented our chosen schools to you and explained their registration and admissions processes, we will encourage you to take the lead on the school admissions front. As an additional expense, we can support you with the registration process and/or accompany you on your school tours or visit on your behalf, provided that we are available to do so and only if your prospective schools are happy for us to register your child on your behalf or accompany you on your school visits or visit on your behalf. We will also schedule a phone call or video call, included within your original fee, for a debrief and to hear your thoughts after your school visits. We then actively encourage you to keep in touch with any final questions, and we would be delighted to hear your subsequent admissions news and choices.
ESB’s Directory
As part of our advisory service, we can direct you to our trusted affiliates:
- The country’s leading educational psychologists and SEND assessors.
- The best local and national property finders and buyers’ agents (purchase and/or rentals) or relocation agents (personal or corporate).
- Outstanding online or face-to-face tutors.
- The top nanny and household staff agencies and recruiters.
- Specialists and experts in a wide range of fields, from lifestyle concierge services and family lawyers to private banking and wealth management.
School Placement
Monthly retainer fee
Our end-to-end service, supporting families through their school admissions journey (7+, 8+, 11+, 13+, or occasional places) from start to finish.
The placement service supports families faced with competitive school entrance exams and interviews – it is an elite, consultant-guided strategic planning and preparation service, working with families who choose to be child-led, parent-led, or tutor-led.
To provide near exclusivity, we only ever work with a very small number of placement families during each admissions cycle. Therefore, we operate a waiting list to ensure maximum quality and attention for each placement family.
Onboarding
At the point of contacting ESB, we will book a complementary discovery call to introduce ourselves, learn more about you and your child, and discuss our services as well as our fees and any further questions you may have about our school placement service.
Getting to know your child
If age appropriate and desired, we will arrange for your child (ages 6 and above) to complete the APT free-of-charge to give us an up-to-date indication of their academic potential and their suitability to their future schools. We will also request to see your child's latest school report (if available).
Ongoing consultations and monitoring
However you choose to prepare your child for their entrance exams, we will be on hand to meet with you and your child, or your child and their tutor to discuss and review all aspects of their ongoing school admissions preparation. This will include creating a long-term framework to plan your child’s entrance exams journey, resourcing their learning, ongoing assessment via the APT and our bespoke written school entrance exam papers, and meticulous monitoring of their progress.
Year planner
Should you require one, we will create a comprehensive year planner, outlining your prospective schools’ deadlines to register your child, when you can attend their open days and/or small group tours (where offered by the school), and your child’s likely exam and/or interview and activity day dates.
Non-examined admissions preparation
If required by your child’s future schools, we will personally prepare them for their interviews and/or activity days.
ESB’s Directory
As part of our placement service, we can direct you to our trusted affiliates:
- The country’s leading educational psychologists and SEND assessors.
- The best local and national property finders and buyers’ agents (purchase and/or rentals) or relocation agents (personal or corporate).
- Outstanding online and face-to-face tutors.
- The top nanny and household staff agencies and recruiters.
- Specialists and experts in a wide range of fields, from lifestyle concierge services and family lawyers to private banking and wealth management.
Problem Solver Consultation
£125.00 per half hour + VAT
An opportunity to discuss any aspect of your child’s educational journey, no matter where you live, whether your child is of school-age, or where they go to school.
The first 15 minutes of your consultation is free, so if at that point you decide not to proceed there will be no charge.
This consultation works well as an agenda-less meeting, or it can be focused on a question or concern you have shared prior to the call.
- State comprehensive, grammar school, or independent school?
- A co-educational or single-sex school?
- A day school or a boarding school?
- When do we need to start planning our child’s pre-school and school admissions journey?
- Which primary schools or secondary schools should we apply to?
- We have chosen a school for our child, can we have a second opinion on the school before we complete the registration process or confirm our offer?
- Is our child ready for the 4+ assessment and how should we prepare them?
- How should we prepare our child for their 7+, 8+, 9+, 10+, 11+, or 13+ entrance exams?
- How can we support our child with suspected or diagnosed Special Educational Needs?
- Can you recommend tutors to us?
The APT
£350.00 + VAT (APT and feedback consultation)
We are one of a handful of consultancies who offer the ‘APT’ - an online, AI-powered, adaptive, national curriculum-focused assessment that can be sat from the comfort of your home.
Typically completed in 60-90 minutes, the APT is designed for children aged 6-16 - it quantifies their ability in English, maths, verbal reasoning, and non-verbal reasoning, producing a Standard Age Score (SAS) which compares your child against children of the same age in state and independent schools across the country in the four assessed subject areas. It is not a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ assessment.
The APT can be used as a measure of progress over time, it helps to identify your child’s areas of strength and weakness, and not only is an excellent indicator of likely success in future school admissions, it is also a very similar system to the ones used by multiple schools for their online entrance exams.
On completion of the APT, we will arrange a 30-minute feedback consultation to discuss your child’s detailed APT report and the next steps along their educational journey.
School Admissions Assessments
£500.00 + VAT (remote)
Fees on request (face-to-face)
Our assessment packages are meticulously designed to support families navigating the competitive admissions processes of academically selective schools in London and beyond at 7+, 8+, 9+, 10+, and 11+.
Subject to the requirements of your target schools and your preferences, our assessments usually take your child 2-3 hours to complete – sat over at least two sessions – and typically include:
Our mock entrance exam papers - written to meet the requirements, style, and level of difficulty of your target schools.
The APT - an age-weighted online assessment of your child’s relative academic ability in English, Maths and Reasoning.
A mock admissions interview - assessing your child’s character and confidence; a critical component of many schools’ admissions procedures.
The package culminates in a comprehensive, one-hour consultation to review your child's overall performance, assess their suitability for your target schools, and identify actionable areas for further improvement.
Mock Admissions Interview
£175.00 + VAT (online)
£225.00 + VAT (face-to-face)
Having interviewed numerous children whilst at King’s College School, Wimbledon and more recently through ESB Consulting, we are very well-placed to prepare your child for their upcoming school admissions interviews at the most sought-after day and boarding schools in London and beyond, and at all entry points (e.g., 7+, 8+, 11+ and 13+).
You can choose between an online or face-to-face mock interview; both options last one hour. The interview typically takes 40 minutes to complete, with 20 minutes dedicated to thorough parental feedback.
Further interviews can be booked at a discounted rate to check for progress against a different set of questions.