Thank you for taking the time to attend our public consultation today.
As you may be aware, in October 2024 King’s College School committed to purchase the site of the former Ursuline Preparatory School on The Downs, Wimbledon.
We are thrilled that, as one of the world’s leading schools, we are now in a position to move forward with our proposals to create a new, purpose-built campus for our junior school.
While the project is still at an early stage, it represents a rare and important opportunity to secure the Downs site, just a seven minute walk from the main King’s campus on Southside, for ongoing educational use and to deliver modern, sustainable facilities for future generations.
These exciting plans for redevelopment and investment come soon after the announcement that for the first time in nearly 200 years King’s will extend co-education throughout the school – with boys and girls invited to join our junior school from September 2029.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
About King’s College School, Wimbledon
King’s is one of the world’s leading independent schools, originally founded as the junior department of King’s College London, with a forward-looking and progressive approach to education.
King’s believes in offering each of its pupils an outstanding educational experience, educating in Mind, Spirit and Heart, and offering them the best possible preparation for their lives in the world beyond school.
At The Downs, we intend to create a new, world-class campus for our junior pupils (aged 7-11).This represents a rare and significant opportunity to invest in the future of education in our community – securing the site for educational use and delivering modern, sustainable facilities that will make a positive contribution to the futures of our pupils and the local area.
This relocation of our junior school will also create opportunities for the renewal and enhancement of some spaces on the main campus.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
Our commitment to the wider community
At King’s we are deeply committed to fostering meaningful connections within our local community.
Our partnership projects are underpinned by the principles of being mutually beneficial, impactful and sustainable, and challenging disadvantage. We work closely with over 40 maintained schools in Merton, Kingston, Richmond and Wandsworth through a wide range of projects. These include the week-long Open Doors Project in which King’s pupils join forces with sixth formers from local schools to lead primary school students both in creative arts workshops which culminate in a devised performance, and in sports which finish with a tournament. Furthermore, 450 King’s pupils take part in partnership projects weekly which involve more than 2000 pupils from local state schools on an annual basis.
The development of our new junior school will further enable us to deepen community ties and nurture responsibility in our young people from an early age.
Through age-appropriate partnerships and shared initiatives, our pupils begin their journey of making a contribution to the world beyond school – helping to build a stronger, more connected future for our wider community.
In addition we hope local residents will benefit from the new junior school’s green spaces, improved landscaping and carefully managed vehicle movements.
In the future, we hope to host community events and offer access to facilities where possible, ensuring the school remains a welcoming, considerate neighbour and a positive presence within the local area.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
The Site Site history
The site at The Downs is ideally located for the new junior school, but the current buildings that occupy it are not appropriate for reuse.
Formerly home to Ursuline Preparatory School from 1945 to 2024, the site’s original purpose was for residential buildings. There is a non-listed Victorian villa on the site, which has been extended more recently, and several smaller buildings of varying age and condition.
The fragmented layout, variable condition and unsustainable footprint of the buildings mean that the site needs to be carefully redeveloped for modern educational use.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
The Site
Key features
Notable features include the significant level changes across the site, following the slope of The Downs.
The boundary is surrounded by mature trees that contribute to the distinctive character and green feel of not only the site, but The Downs and the wider Conservation Area.
These trees will be retained as part of our proposals, continuing to provide valuable privacy for our residential neighbours to the northeast and southeast, as well as for Ursuline High School, our immediate neighbour to the northwest.
Vehicle access is currently adjacent to the northern edge of the site, directly from The Downs.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
1. West Wimbledon Conservation Area
2. Victor ian Villa
3. St Angela’s Building
4. Residential Neighbours
5. St Ur suline High School’s Art building
6. Steep Terrain
7. Main Entr ance
8. Nur sery Entrance
9. Vehicle access
10. Sur rounding Mature Trees
Key: Site context: 18 The Downs
Building condition
As a starting point, the professional project team and King’s staff considered all feasible options to meet the needs of the new junior school on the existing site, before contemplating the removal of any buildings.
However, our analysis demonstrated that the existing buildings could not provide adequate shape and space for the long-term future of the school.
Therefore, we concluded that a replacement, done once and done well, will support the school long into the future by creating buildings that perform significantly better environmentally, functionally and in terms of accessibility.
A pre-demolition audit has been conducted, concluding that 97% of the building material can be diverted to be re-used or recycled. Opportunities for best use of this material will be considered as the design progresses.
Main House + Extensions
Coach House (Front + Back)King’s Hall
Multi-use Games Area
St. Mary Building
St. Angela Building
Our vision
Following an extensive and collaborative briefing process with our design team, we have established the underlying accommodation needs and space types and sizes required at the new junior school site – to suit both current and future requirements.
Through this early design process we identified not only the need to consolidate the site’s current footprint, to maximise green and play spaces, but also ways to optimise the usage of the space, making as many spaces as possible flexible, multi-purpose and adaptable to how a King’s education will change over the coming years.
Our guiding principles include:
The consolidation of the current built footprint, to ensure we deliver the right balance of indoor and outdoor space.
Delivering teaching spaces that are grouped alongside staff and pupil amenity areas, to offer educational, operational and efficiency advantages
Specialist teaching rooms for Art, DT and Science.
A main hall that will serve multiple uses, including as an assembly and performance space – large enough to comfortably hold the entire junior school.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
Dedicated spaces for staff and IT facilities, all of which will be large, flexible spaces that benefit from being well-located and readily accessible.
A landscaped environment that blends the boundary between indoor and outdoor spaces for learning, supported by a considered tree retention and planting strategy to enhance biodiversity.
A new dining space that will serve the entire junior school and will open out to the outdoors, linking pupils seamlessly from learning, to eating, to play.
Diagram showing key adjacencies to ensure spaces are well-placed for efficient design and use
Emerging Proposals
Building on our design principles, and informed by early discussions with Merton Council, we have developed a spatial strategy that meets the school’s needs while consolidating the built footprint on the site.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
Existing
Proposed built footprint
Design and materials
Our emerging proposals aim to take advantage of the site’s level changes by establishing a lower ground floor, where catering, ancillary facilities, and plant equipment to support the school’s decarbonisation are housed within the hillside. General teaching spaces will be located above this at ground and first-floor levels.
The proposed material palette will draw from the surrounding context of The Downs and the broader West Wimbledon Conservation Area, ensuring the building integrates sensitively into its local setting.
Hall Contains performance space.
Sits lower than the spine.
Blends in with the landscape.
Plinth
A part of the landscape. Runs continuously below other elements, which sit atop it.
Box Contains social and communal spaces, including IT and library.
Solid form that retains the earth of the sloped site.
Proposed building diagram
Landscape Aspirations
The landscape proposals offer an opportunity to create a vibrant setting that showcases the new school building and provides an engaging, dynamic environment for learning.
A variety of structured and informal play areas for children to learn, move, and grow.
New trees and planting around the site boundaries to enrich biodiversity and create a green buffer.
Dedicated growing areas to support King’s ethos of stewardship, giving students hands-on experience with nature.
A rooftop learning terrace, creating an outdoor extension of the library and offering a quieter space for study.
Landscape strategy
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
Transport Strategy
We strive to be good, considerate neighbours, and we recognise the importance of how our new junior school will interact with The Downs, our neighbours and other local road users.
To do this we will:
• Continue to implement the considerate approach used in our current TfL Gold Travel accreditation strategy for the junior school site, asking that all but essential car trips be reconsidered, for an alternative, sustainable transport method.
• Ensure that all site access points – vehicular, pedestrian and cyclist – come from The Downs and align with existing entrances, while minimising the impact of vehicular access by maintaining the current vehicle route along the northern boundary to safely separate deliveries and servicing from visitor and pupil areas. Provide cycle parking for the site, located to the south entrance to provide clear, safe and easy access.
• Ensure that all King’s maintenance and on-site vehicles at the junior school will be electric – as they are across our wider estate – as the school continues to work to reduce its carbon footprint.
We also operate a network of coaches that transport pupils each weekday across 12 routes. This service provides a significant and sustainable travel option and will be available to pupils attending the proposed junior school.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
Sustainability
At King’s we are determined to take positive action and rise to the challenges presented by climate change.
As educators and as a leader in our community, we feel it is our duty to lead by example: taking the practical steps needed to become environmentally sustainable today, and instilling the ambition in our pupils to take action to prevent climate breakdown and to protect the environment.
We are committed to working towards a Net Zero Carbon building, and as part of the briefing process for the new junior school we have discussed how this commitment can be further developed, including as a minimum:
Clean air
Reduce air pollution and mitigate the impact of poor air quality around the school site.
Waste and resource use
Promote responsible consumption, reduce the amount of waste produced and increase reuse and recycling where generation of waste cannot be prevented.
Biodiversity
Maintain and enhance the green spaces on the school site to assist and support biodiversity and health and wellbeing.
Water
Improve water efficiency across the estate through design and maintenance.
Carbon and energy
Improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Construction and refurbishment
Manage the construction, refurbishment and post-completion use of our buildings to reduce their environmental impact and enhance the wellbeing of building users.
King’s College School, Wimbledon
0800 689 5209
hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
Your input matters We want to hear from you!
Thank you for taking the time to come to our consultation event today.
The project team and King’s staff will review your feedback prior to presenting our near-complete proposals and designs for comment in the Autumn, ahead of submitting an application to Merton Council before the end of the year.
Please share your thoughts to help us ensure that our proposals meet the needs of local residents, pupils and staff.
Please submit all feedback forms by Wednesday 2nd July 2025.
You can leave feedback by:
Filling in a feedback form today at the exhibition
Filling in a feedback form online at: www.bit.ly/KCS-JS (or via the QR code below)
Consultation Timeline
Following this initial round of public consultation, our team will spend the summer months reviewing your feedback and working on the evolving design, before presenting the near finalised scheme for a second round of public consultation in the Autumn.
Emailing your comments to: hello@kcsconsultation.org.uk
Calling 0800 689 5209
We then hope to submit a planning application to Merton Council in late 2025.
