The preparatory school curriculum

Education in today’s preparatory school is set against a background of traditional values and influences that reflect the kind of society we want our children to grow up in. At a preparatory school children learn to know themselves; what they are good at, where their natural talents lie, and where they need to try harder, as well as having a strong, academic education. Apart from the different subjects taught a school’s curriculum also encompasses all the learning and other experiences that express its ethos. The whole curriculum of a school wraps around the children and allows them the opportunity to try, explore, succeed and be challenged so that they grow as able and confident members of their future society.

The National Curriculum is the subject based curriculum that forms part of this whole curriculum that all maintained schools must follow. But this is not necessarily the case for independent schools. Being independent, they can choose their own curriculum, one that is in keeping with the stated aims, purpose and values of the school. In all preparatory schools that curriculum gives a good, sound education in mathematics and literacy, offers breadth and depth in other subject areas, including classics and modern foreign languages and values sport, team games, creativity and exploration. It will reflect the particular values and characteristics of the school and may be based in a faith or ethical ethos.

The National Curriculum was first introduced into schools at the end of the 1980s, nearly 20 years ago now and it had a dramatic impact on the nature of education and across the whole country, the way in which classrooms teaching was structured. When it was introduced it raised many questions for independent schools and caused some heart searching. Every independent school is proud of offering its own kind of education, and parents choose a particular school because of that. There may be a strong sporting ethos, exceptional academic standards, language excellence or a culture of boarding. Each school has its own characteristic spirit and the notion of a common, subject based curriculum that all schools would follow was very difficult to appreciate. However schools soon came to realise the advantages of this national curriculum and began to adapt it to the needs of their own schools, something that maintained schools felt restricted in doing as they were under a statutory obligation to implement it throughout their school, as prescribed by the Government.

For children up to the age of 11 the National Curriculum is made up of three core subjects; mathematics, English and science, and seven foundation subjects; history, geography, ICT, design technology, art and design, music and PE. For pupils up to 14 it also includes modern foreign languages, personal, social and health education, and citizenship. Each of these subjects has a programme of study associated with it. This describes what children should be taught and has been constructed so that children are being taught things appropriate for their age and ability. In science for example, the teaching of atoms and molecules comes into the curriculum for children aged 11 and above. Most, younger children will not be ready to understand the abstract concepts involved, instead they learn about the nature of materials and the way they change in preparation for the more difficult concepts when they are intellectually ready. It is this backbone of spiralling progression in subject knowledge and understanding that teachers have found so useful. All children also learn religious education through an agreed syllabus.

Most preparatory schools use the National Curriculum to a greater or lesser extent, as a starting point for their own curriculum, adapting it to the school's character and their pupils’ needs. They use it as a backbone for the children’s learning but add to it or move more quickly along it as they see fit. They use it in the context of their own school and pupils. In history one school may choose to adopt a chronological approach to learning rather than a topic based one from the National Curriculum. A school may be keen to follow the scheme for design technology in full; planning, designing and making, problem solving and evaluating in a range of different materials, another may take a craft and handwork approach. The important feature of the curriculum in a preparatory school is that it has been structured and planned to give the children the best opportunities to learn in a way that suits them, in the context of the school’s aims. The preparatory school takes a conscious decision about what is taught and when rather than following prescription from on high.

A particular characteristic of a preparatory school curriculum is the teaching of modern foreign languages to young children. Most schools teach another language, French say, from about the age of seven, and in many schools to children as young as five. This is an important feature of the curriculum of which schools are justly proud, with children achieving exceptional performance by the time they take their common entrance examination at 13. Classics also form a strong element of the preparatory school curriculum, with about two thirds of schools teaching Latin, and one in six still offer Greek.

Music and drama are also essential parts of the curriculum. The teaching of music is always done by subject specialists, who are often fine musicians themselves, and goes way beyond the requirements of the National Curriculum. About 80% of children have individual instrumental teaching as well. Preparatory schools are proud of the school performances and plays they produce, many of a very high, almost professional standard. Always good fun for performers and audience alike they come about as a result of the emphasis given to speaking well and presenting clearly in English lessons as well as the specific teaching of drama. All this develops a sense of appreciation and gives richness to the life of the school.

Recently here has been a great deal of concern about poor diet and inactivity leading to childhood obesity but in the preparatory school great importance has always been given to sport and physical recreation; the youngest children do about three hours of sport and PE, rising to around 5.5 hours for the oldest pupils - lately a government initiative has been exhorting all schools to make two hours a week available for some form of sport or physical education. A very wide range of sports is offered in preparatory schools, with significant emphasis on team games. More than 30 are offered from hockey, football, swimming and rugby through to fencing, judo and squash. Again specialist teaching means that children are having the best coaching available and matches and competitions against other schools sharpen the skills and tactics.

All this means that the whole curriculum in a preparatory school is a rich and varied organism, planned by each individual school to offer all its pupils the best opportunities to grow intellectually, emotionally and physically. Within that curriculum most schools take advantage of some of the structure and definition of the National Curriculum, using it as starting point for children’s subject learning but the whole curriculum, which flows into every part of preparatory school life and colours it, is deep yet lively, challenging yet supportive.

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