We have had two children go through Dame Catherine’s Nursery and School.
It was a big decision initially to ‘step out of the box’ of sending them to the local mainstream school, to a very small independent school. But the lure of no formal testing, small class sizes, no homework, and the family orientated environment was a huge influence in our decision.
Both boys have very happy memories of their time at the Nursery and School and we count ourselves lucky that we found such a special and unique place for our children to grow and learn. Our biggest worry, long term, was how they would adapt from this small, nurturing, family friendly environment, to being an unknown in a Secondary school of huge numbers.
The answer is that neither of them had a problem with the transition!
When the time came they were already confident, independent young men and both went into the top academic sets even without any SATS results.
They made friends easily with children from large Primary schools, who seemed to abandon their Primary friends to make new ones.
We feel that the small class sizes, lovely dedicated staff, and the encouragement to be individual, confident and independent, has certainly helped them to become the well rounded, academically and socially confident boys they now are.
Our family will always remember and treasure the special years we had at Dame Catherine’s and would wholeheartedly recommend this very unique school.
Jane and Malc Dawn.
