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“Your child will be mostly taught through games and play”
For me, that’s what the early years provide. If you don’t have the footings of the house, cracks can start to appear in the brickwork later on.” Official government guidelines in England on the early years foundation stage (EYFS, which covers children from birth until the end of their first year in reception, when they turn five) have been around for ages and are specific about what nurseries and pre-prep departments should be covering. Communication and language, literacy, mathematics, understanding the world and expressive arts and design all feature. But a key sentence in the official wording is: ‘Your child will be mostly taught through games and play.’ It may sound straightforward, but these are games and play with a purpose, delivered by a highly trained team of early years practitioners and teachers. Their job is to know all the children they work with inside out, so each one gets an almost miraculously personalised programme of learning, individualised to their interests and confidence levels. “It’s making learning very practical and achievable for everybody, because children all learn differently and need different approaches,” points out Nicola Henson. She cites the example of a nursery-aged pupil, with limited English, but a very clear sense of what he enjoyed doing. For him, playing with Play-Doh created a calming, relaxing play space, which meant the school could also start to reach out
with additional activities to help him improve his vocabulary. “It was his comfortable place to learn, so we were constantly drawing on that knowledge to make it interesting for him and to make sure we could engage him. We might add in some animals and teach him about animals or add in some colours and teach about colours. If a child is happy and secure, they’re going to learn more – and more quickly.” Teachers are also highly ambitious for their pupils. At OIS, expertise with a whole host of different mother tongues is something of a house speciality, and children from the age of three receive weekly Spanish lessons with a native Spanish speaker. At St Mary’s School, Cambridge, Mandarin is taught from Year 1, while a specialist science teacher inspires even the tiniest pupils to take an interest in science, technology, engineering and maths. Computer coding is widely offered at a very young age – often starting with games that help pupils understand just why it’s important to get your instructions right. At Sancton Wood, for example, pupils in Years 1 and 2 may write out all the stages required to make a jam sandwich. Tiny differences can lead to enormous variations – like jam on the outside of the bread. “It makes you realise that if you miss one of the little coding instructions, you all make it very differently,” says Nicola Henson. There’s a big emphasis on learning practical skills, too – inside and outside
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