Curriculum

As educators we believe that children are equipped with enormous potential for learning from the moment they are born. In their early years, every experience a child has contributes to their understanding of the world around them and their place in it. We want to make Radnor House Prep School a beacon for Early Years education where young children will feel at home and flourish in our Nursery and Reception classes.

We have had the wonderful opportunity to redesign and reimagine our EYFS teaching space from scratch. We bring the outside in, with open access to covered outside spaces and large and airy classrooms, enabling us to provide a full and varied curriculum for even our youngest learners. The Nursery and Reception is linked by a covered outdoor play area and the Early Years rooms at Kew Foot Road have been refurbished to the highest of specifications.

Our Early Years curriculum combines the Early Years Foundation goals with elements of Montessori teaching to create child-initiated learning. Practical life activities using real objects in real situations will be crucial, and time will be given to children to repeat and refine these skills. Independence is nurtured right from the very beginning through everyday routines, under the enthusiastic, watchful eyes of an experienced Early Years team.

Learning is shared, made visible and celebrated throughout the setting. The use of Tapestry creates a platform for open discussions between teachers, pupils and parents and allows parents to see ongoing learning processes as well as the end result of a project.

Seven Areas of Learning

We incorporate all seven areas of learning in the Department for Education’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and endeavour to allow our pupils to go beyond and reach their full potential.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We endorse a Growth Mindset approach where pupils are confident to make decisions and are willing to always ‘have a go’.

From birth, children are constantly growing, adapting and learning from their environment. At Radnor House, we support the children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED), encouraging them to build strong relationships with children and adults, develop self-confidence, consider the needs of others and experience pride and success. We encourage our pupils to learn about the beauty of making mistakes as a vehicle for learning and growing.

Communication and Language

Our teachers take every opportunity to foster dialogue and build vocabulary whilst establishing positive speaking and listening skills.

We create a language rich environment where children are encouraged to express themselves and share their thoughts, ideas and feelings, in a space where they understand that their contributions are always valued. Language development is supported by a number of activities such as storytelling and role play which stimulate communication skills and vocabulary development. We help Radnor pupils to internalise and innovate well-known stories through a story-making approach.

Physical development

A wide range of activities and resources help to refine fine motor skills and physical development in our young learners.

Children learn about the importance of keeping the body and mind active and healthy. We enjoy lots of physical learning opportunities – our Early Years department has open access straight into its own play area, to maximise the benefits of fluid indoor/outdoor learning. We ensure our pupils have opportunities to develop their physical dexterity in a fun way. Favourites include our ‘dough discos’ and shape and letter writing in everything from glitter to chocolate spread.

Literacy

A fundamental life skill, literacy is a key component of the teaching at Radnor House Prep School.

Reading and writing are one of the most essential milestones in the life of our young children. We develop young imaginations through active storytelling and role play, aiming to instil a love of reading in our children. When each child is ready, they begin exploring sounds through a systematic phonics teaching approach, as well as their corresponding letters in the alphabet, linking sounds to letters. They enjoy looking for things in our stimulating EYFS environment that they can connect to a sound (animals, toys, foods, objects etc). Once a child understands that words have beginning, medial and end sounds, they are shown the importance of “sounding out” words (d-o-g), and intuitively (with a little bit of help), they begin to read and write

Maths

Joining in with number songs and rhymes introduces our learners to mathematics in the Early Years.

Children use concrete resources: touching, feeling and manipulating materials to strengthen their understanding of different ways of working with and learning about numbers. A range of kinesthetic, practical and fun activities rooted in a Montessori approach help to ensure children are familiar with concepts such as: colour, shape, pattern, sorting, matching, sequencing and counting – building a strong foundation from which they can continue to build as they move through the school. Our pupils are taught to confidently count forwards and backwards to twenty with a solid understanding of what each number looks like so that they can understand terms like more than, less than and groups of. Our mastery approach ensures a strong mathematical foundation upon which to build.

Understanding the world

Radnor pupils develop a keen interest and curiosity in the world around them.

At Radnor, we nurture pupils in their play and exploration, challenging them to ask questions and find things out for themselves. Our riverfront outdoor play area and cross curricular teaching style lend themselves to this area of discovery. The children at Radnor House are competent users of technology and when appropriate, are introduced to laptops and iPads where they develop skills which they can use across all areas of learning. Pupils are also introduced to programming and algorithms, using tools such as Beebots for an early introduction to coding.

Expressive Arts and Design

At Radnor House, all of our pupils are given opportunities to harness their creativity.

Through class assemblies and whole-school performances, children can show off their personalities and build confidence in speaking aloud and expressing themselves. In our Early Years department, children explore and create using crayons, chalks, paints and glue with a range of modelling items readily available to them, giving limitless possibilities for imagination. Specialist lessons in music and eurhythmics give the children the opportunity to express themselves through movement, dance and song.