Welcome to The Little Courtiers, The Early Years Pre-Prep School of Hampton Court House comprising our Nursery and Reception classes
Ages 2 – 5
A very warm welcome to The Little Courtiers section of our website. We are delighted you have shown interest in our beautiful and bespoke Nursery and Reception years, situated on the edge of Bushy Park. From 2 to 5 years old, we take children on a journey of exploration and education through our bespoke and blended approach, combining the Early Years Foundation Stage and the Forest School approach. This enables the children to get the right balance of indoor and outdoor learning activities at every age and stage of their learning. The most wonderful part of our curriculum is that it is totally child-centred. This means that the curriculum is developed individually for every child, which enables children to learn at their own pace and develop the skills they need to reach their full potential.
Heading our Early Years department is Genevieve, who has a wealth of experience including teaching, 17 years in nursery management, mentoring across different educational programmes, lecturing experience on the extended level 3 diploma, and working as an Early Years Ofsted inspector. Genevieve has a master’s degree in Early Years education as well as achieving Early Years Professional Status. She joined Dukes Education in January 2020 as Senior Headteacher at Riverside Nursery Schools and currently leads our own outstanding rated HCH Early Years department. Genevieve is supported by an exceptional team, some of which have been working at HCH for between 5 and 23 years!
Our classes
We take children from as young as 2 years in Pre-nursery until the academic year after they turn 3 years old, when they usually move to the Nursery class. Children will start in a Reception class in the academic year that they turn five years old. This means that their 5th birthday falls within the cycle from 1st September to the following 31st August. In Reception, we have a strong focus on the holistic child. We have an accelerated phonics and reading scheme which boosts children’s literacy skills and love of reading. In Mathematics, we follow White Rose in preparation for Year 1, learning mathematical concepts through activities and games. The children benefit from a number of specialist lessons and a combined, bespoke EYFS curriculum which ensures exceptional preparation for their next stage of learning. Nursery is a play based, child-centred approach combined with a balance of adult-led interactions, focusing on exploration through play and finding children’s intrinsic motivation through their interests. The children also benefit from a range of specialist teaching but spend most of their time within the EYFS curriculum. Our Pre-nursery group is a mixed age range of 2 and 3 year olds, enabling the children to learn from each other. It is play based and focuses on children’s wellbeing, physical skills and communication.
Our school day
The School day for Pre-nursery to Reception: children start at 8:30am and finish at 3:15pm. There is before and after school provision from 8am to 5:30pm. Please ask the Admissions team for more details.
As part of our school day, we have the benefit of including various extracurricular activities for Nursery and Reception, such as French, forest school, ballet and music. Children may also elect to do additional musical instruments and clubs from nursery age. Information on this may be requested.
