David Sellens – aged 61, OBE holder and headmaster of a western state primary London – gets sent a lot of letters. Some come from GPs who explain on behalf of parents why a child needs to go to school; some are from paid psychologists who do the same thing; some are from the parents themselves, personal appeals begging Sellens for a spot. Once upon a time there was a family who traveled from here China just to take a school trip. They planned to move to the area; they arrived at the front gate with their suitcases.
“We’re ridiculously popular,” says Sellens, sitting in his office. Last school year, the average distance a child had to travel from their school to qualify for a place was just 96.5 metres.
Sellens oversees Thomas Jones in Notting Hill, arguably the best state primary in the country. The institution has 236 students (approximately 30 per class); is in the top one percent of schools in England; was named Primary School of the Year 2026 by the primary school Sunday Times; and – although Sellens believes that exam results are not really a sign of quality – it is worth noting that by 2025, 93 percent of students achieved the ‘expected national standard’ in their exams. The national average is 63 percent.
It is also worth mentioning that the school focuses on a group of children who often lead difficult lives. At Thomas Jones, 41.6 per cent of pupils are eligible for free school meals (compared to the national average of 25.7 per cent). Opposite the entrance to the school is Lancaster West, the estate that contained it Grenfell Tower.
Sellens joined 25 years ago when Thomas Jones was behind, had a high suspension rate and ranked 24th out of 26 elementary schools in the area. “I was a young head,” he says. ‘I had a lot of energy and ideas.’
Thomas Jones in Notting Hill is in the top one percent of schools in England and was named Primary School Of The Year 2026
I visit on Friday, at drop off. Sellens walks me to the playground and tells me not to worry, but ‘the children will want to talk to you’. He also adds, “I’m sorry, but you will see that I am disgracing myself,” and then he grabs a bullhorn from his office floor, with which in a few minutes he will loudly greet every student by name.
The children want to have a chat. Almost all of them come up to me without any encouragement, introduce themselves, shake my hand and say, “Welcome to Thomas Jones!”
They are neatly dressed, a measure introduced by Sellens. “There was no uniform when I started,” he says. ‘I wanted sailor suits and Paddington Bear duffle coats. I wanted capes. But it was so expensive.” However, he did provide straw hats, which only year 6 children can wear. Before we start my student-led field trip, one of the sixth-graders asks if I want her to put on her boat. I don’t care; does she want to carry the skipper? “Yes,” she answers, before grabbing it and dropping it on her head.
We walk to the hall, which functions as an editing room, dining room and last week as a stage for a production of The lion, the witch and the wardrobe. One of my guides played Mr. Tumnus and demonstrates his character’s walk. Another asks if I want to be in the wardrobe they designed for the performance. I’m afraid I’m too big. “Don’t worry,” says a fifth-grader, “the floors are reinforced!”
We stop at a display board and I comment on how good the handwriting is. “That’s not even the neatest handwriting in school,” I am told authoritatively by a third-year student.
Several aesthetic changes have been made to the school, such as raising the ceiling height, painting the walls a brilliant white and replacing cushioned chairs with soft-backed wooden chairs.
Headmaster David Sellens’ main improvement strategy was to also create a daycare center in the center of the school, for 25 children aged three to four years old
Upon arriving at Thomas Jones, Sellens made several aesthetic changes. He raised the ceiling heights, painted the walls a brilliant white and implemented a ‘furniture plan’, replacing cushioned chairs with wooden chairs with sleek backs. There are ‘no patterns allowed’. He also placed Ikea candles throughout the school, which are burned during the day. (Normally it smells vanilla, in winter it smells like cinnamon.)
“I have a reason,” Sellens says. ‘Yes, I have a thing for cleanliness; when a space is free of clutter, children respond differently.”
He also wanted to find ‘the antidote for the very small flats, often without a garden or balcony’ where the majority of the students live. ‘The school’s play area was not well thought out.’ He planted trees, redesigned the gardens and bought two beehives.
However, Sellens’ main improvement strategy was to create a daycare center in the center of the school, for 25 children aged three to four. ‘We thought: if we invest in the daycare, it will pay off, because some of those families, if we do it right, will register for the daycare.’ Local governments ‘had more money then’ and provided Sellens with money. The nursery was originally free, but in 2018 they became the last nursery in the borough to introduce a charge (£2,000 per term) and now a third of families pay.
Although Thomas Jones is rated ‘outstanding’, Sellens is ‘not a slave to Ofsted’. He has certain educational rules. ‘There is no silence when we talk to the children.’ In year six, students study Milton and Shakespeare; Several parents report that their small child has come home to chat about “the human condition.”
The council selects which children go to Thomas Jones, with 75 percent coming from the local estate
Sellens cautiously appointed staff. “I would say, ‘Look, this is what my vision is. If you want an easy job, this isn’t for you.”‘ He also has a strict ‘no cynics’ policy (‘the people who work here have to be exuberant about life’) and teachers regularly change years to avoid stagnation.
Teachers must like it here: Sellens’ deputy, Lindsay Johnson, preceded him and has worked there for 32 years; and a senior leader, Abigail Kantoch, has been with Thomas Jones since 2007.
It is telephone-free (children who walk to school must hand in their mobile phones) and discipline is ‘more carrot’ than stick. ‘What we don’t think works is a punishment [approach]’, says Sellens. For example, they do not fine parents – as some schools do – if a child is absent. Instead, for example, they have the daily ‘punctuality cup’, which is awarded to the class that arrives fastest.
The council selects which children go to Thomas Jones and although 75 per cent come from the local estate, there is now a ‘very small percentage’ of parents who could have gone privately but chose Thomas Jones.
The children all bounce happily against each other. And, Sellens says, “I’d hate for this to be misunderstood—or for people to think I’m some kind of woke wet blanket, because I’m not—but multiculturalism certainly works here.” At Thomas Jones, 89.5 percent of students come from an ethnic minority background (compared to 38 percent nationally) and there are 32 ‘discrete ethnic categories represented’. There is no ethnic majority at the school, although the largest ethnic groups are Black African, Moroccan, ‘other mixed background’ and white British.
A large part of my conversations with Sellens are about why Thomas Jones succeeded. But, he says, “What we do is extremely difficult. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea that this is a privileged place – we are literally 200 meters from Grenfell Tower.’ Two former students died in the fire, and for another year one student was the only one in her entire family to survive. Today, five fruit trees have been planted at the school gates to commemorate them. So Sellens says, “I don’t want this to be sugar-coated.”
Yet he recently saw an ex-parent who told him her child was the first person in their family to go to college. “He went to Birmingham, got a first and is about to start his masters in robotics,” he says. ‘I think we instill in our students the feeling that anything is possible. We talk a lot about the fact that no one comes up with a trust fund. Nobody’s going to save you, you know? This is it. This is your chance.’
DOS AND DON’TS AT THOMAS JONES
DON’T don’t have any phones
DON’T conversations with students become silent
DON’T parents are fined for being late – instead there is a ‘punctuality cup’ for the class
DON’T have patterned or upholstered furniture
DON’T hiring miserable teachers
DOING prioritize your nursery
DOING paint the walls bright white
DOING keeping beehives
DOING Ikea candles are burning
DOING apply strict cleanliness standards
DOING have a head that greets every child
DOING have straw booters in year six
