Senior Prep

Years 5 and 6:

Children in Years 5 and 6 are at the top of the school and have lots of opportunities to develop their leadership skills. We feel this is a very important part of their development as individuals, and also helps build confidence, independence and resilience for life at senior school which is just peeking over the horizon.  

Our approach: 

The children in Years 5 and 6 move around the school as if they were at secondary school, travelling to different lessons in different locations, rather than having a class base as they did in the junior years. This also encourages and builds the skills of personal organisation, time management, independence and confidence as they begin to run their own lives a little more and rely less on their teachers. This is not to say they cannot lean on us: we encourage them to do so, and each child has a form tutor to whom they can turn for anything they need, whether it be a quick chat about their weekend activities, sharing a joke, or sharing more confidentially their worries. We are here to help and every child knows they have trusted adults to whom they can turn in an instant. 

Specialist subjects and personal technology: 

All subjects in Years 5 and 6 are taught by specialist teachers, and the children benefit from their passion and knowledge. Each child is given a laptop for their personal use by the school and they are able to use this for their work each day. Computing is taught as a specialist subject in which coding and programming feature as central content. Teaching staff of other subjects build opportunities for using ICT in their areas so that children can work creatively, strategically and technologically across the curriculum. The children learn two modern foreign languages (French and Spanish) 

Study Skills: 

All children in Years 5 and 6 receive study skills lessons and these are invaluable for helping them think critically as they develop their verbal and non-verbal cognition, assess ‘how’ they learn best, which strategies work most effectively for them when revising for assessments, and how to successfully navigate summative examinations.