Academic Curriculum

We pride ourselves on our thorough systems for welcoming families and helping children settle into their new learning environment. In the EYFS, involving parents and carers in their children’s learning is central to our settling and enables children to reach their full potential. We believe that families are our children-first educators and parents know their child best of all. From this starting point, we meet each family prior to our pupils starting in the Early Years so that we can ensure every child’s welcome is bespoke and personable.

The Reception classrooms are purposefully designed to be calm, cosy spaces, offering a home from home environment for our youngest children. Our calming classrooms enable your child to feel safe, secure, and valued. Our state of the art, Early Years outdoor area is a continuation of the learning environment. Within each school day, your child will experience an abundance of opportunities to explore and learn outside whilst developing their gross motor muscle strength.

Young children communicate with others right from birth; they need to interact with responsive adults and the world around them to ensure healthy brain development. In our Pre-Prep, our excellent staff to pupil ratios ensure that every child has an opportunity to develop purposeful relationships and engage in high quality conversations with their friends and teachers.

In the Early Years, our curriculum is book led because children exceed their potential when they are immersed in the exciting world of literature. In the Early Years, high quality children’s literature inspires development across the seven areas of learning:

• Communication Language
• Personal Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development
• Maths
• Literacy
• Expressive Arts and Design
• Understanding the World

Each week, we dive into a story together. Often our pupils arrive at school to discover a message, footprints or even a beanstalk growing in the classrooms as a stimuli for their learning! In such an environment, your child cannot help but learn. A wealth of special days, events, educational trips and more ignite what is happening in the classrooms.

Our unique pedagogy inevitably leads to happy children and soaring levels of attainment.

Our Pre-Prep has a feel to it that learning is an adventure. We wholeheartedly involve our pupils when planning lessons and aim to ignite interest and spark curiosity. We build upon and work to develop the concrete skills laid in their Reception year and our aim is to inspire your child so they become motivated and independent learners. Each individual child’s personal, social, and emotional development are at the forefront of everything we do and deliver.

During Years 1 and 2, your child will continue with topic-based learning as part of the creative curriculum. This curriculum encompasses science, history, geography, ICT, art/DT and PSHE and encourages your child to make links between these subjects. They are encouraged to explore, discover, and investigate and are inspired to move freely between the inside and outside classrooms to do so.

Your child will be exposed to French, Spanish and German through a set of assemblies delivered by teachers from our Prep and Senior Schools.

They will also have weekly music, PE and swimming lessons delivered by specialist teachers.

Across Pre-Prep, we fully believe your child should be given the opportunity to learn outside of the classroom. Forest sessions enables children to develop their language and communication skills, build on their motivation and concentration, as well as learn new physical skills. Through hands on activities in the natural world, your child can be creative whilst also learn to manage risks. Perseverance and team work here are key.

Our pupils experience various activities and learn skills such as fire safety, whittling, and using tools to create shelters.

Home to a vast selection of rich and diverse picture books for your child to choose from and bring home each week. Regular sessions with our College Librarians help to develop a love of literature, reading, and an understanding of non-fiction.

From sports days to swimming galas and more, your child will participate in a range of regular sports sessions and events for their physical development. We strive to offer all pupils every opportunity to enjoy sport, try something new and to celebrate their own, and others’, achievements.

What better way to enhance learning than to get stuck in and experience it first-hand? Our regular, interactive trips and creative workshops provide fun, exciting, and memorable experiences for your child.