• St Christopher's is welcoming, aspirational and all-round, and aims to combine strong pastoral care with broad opportunity and confident senior-school preparation.

• Will suit families seeking a Hove prep where pupils enjoy a lively all-round education and are helped to move on strongly at 11+, 13+ or Year 9 transfer points.

Admissions at St Christopher's School are welcoming, energetic and well suited to families seeking a Hove prep with broad co-curricular life and a clear commitment to helping children move on well at the end of Year 8. The school should suit parents who value a prep environment where classroom standards, pastoral care and opportunity beyond lessons all matter.

Scholarships are part of the onward picture here: the school openly prepares Year 8 pupils for a wide range of scholarship types and highlights strong recent scholarship success. That makes senior-school transition a more explicit strength than at many prep schools.

The overall picture is friendly and busy, with the school projecting confidence in both day-to-day care and senior-school preparation. Parents should still visit because the decisive question is whether the day-to-day feel matches what they want for these formative years.

Assessment at St Christopher's School is structured but balanced, with clear tracking of progress, careful attention to core literacy and numeracy, wider subject confidence and the preparation needed for senior-school assessments, and enough breadth to support scholarship ambitions and senior transfer without making children feel defined by tests. Parents should expect clear communication, secure tracking and enough stretch to keep the more ambitious destination routes very much in play.