The King Alfred School

The King Alfred School was founded in 1898 in north-west London as one of the earliest English progressive independent schools, with an explicit founding ethos of educational reform — co-educational from the outset, no school uniform, first-name basis with teachers and no prefect system. The school is named for King Alfred the Great, the Anglo-Saxon king whose ninth-century educational reforms (translating Latin texts into Old English and founding the English court school) made him a symbolic founder figure of English educational tradition.

The school operates today on a Hampstead Garden Suburb campus and educates around 705 pupils ages 4-18. The Head is Robert Lobatto. The school is a member of the Independent Schools Association and is inspected by the ISI. The school maintains its founding progressive ethos — pupils call teachers by their first names, there is no uniform and the school's pastoral and academic structures remain less hierarchical than conventional independent schools. The school operates a substantial bursary programme intended to provide educational access for North London families regardless of family means.