Infants

We have two infant classes, Sycamore Class (4-6 year olds) and Oak Tree Class for  (6-7 year olds).

Sycamore Class

In Sycamore Class children learn in a relaxed way without the pressures to be found in many mainstream settings. The class has one key teacher for each year group, and teacher, and two  teaching assistants. The class follows a largely child-led curriculum which supports children in following their own interests but also gives them opportunities for group work allowing them to build their writing, numeracy and problem-solving skills. Children enjoy a rich cross curricula approach to learning and whilst we use the national curriculum as a framework for our objectives we are not constrained by it and teach creatively developing children’s love of learning.

The Sycamore class is housed in three rooms in the Infant House. There is a Home room where children take part in circle times, group activities and focus work as well as a quiet space for reading. They have a whole room dedicated to block play and small world play and another workshop room with areas for role play, craft, clay, art, and making things. Their large indoor space leads out into the large infant garden adjacent to the house where they can find a working water pump and water play area, a huge sandpit, well resource woodwork area, gardening beds, climbing frame, mud kitchen, make believe pagoda and a large wooded area for climbing trees and imaginative play. Upstairs they can use the infant library where children can sit and read or listen to stories.

Oak Tree Class

We call the Oak Tree class the transition class because children move from a predominately child-led Early Years play based curriculum towards becoming more independent in literacy and numeracy skills. Our main focus is to ensure that pupils achieve high levels of basic skills whilst keeping the arts, science, humanities at the heart of the curriculum. The Oak Tree Class is small so everyone has a high level of teaching input and support. Oak Tree Class has a large classroom which opens onto a roof garden which has space for children to work outside and has amazing views across horse fields to the South Downs. They also make use of the infant garden for outdoor learning and woodwork.

Where to next?

Kindergarten

Admissions

Juniors