Vision and values
Did you know’ there is another way?’
…… a place where we celebrate children being themselves
…… a place where they can develop their curiosity and inquisitiveness
…… where they can be children.
That special place is Dame Catherine Harpur’s School and Nursery, a unique environment for children aged 3-11 years where we ‘Include, Ignite and Innovate.’
Include – we value children as individuals and the diversity of our community.
Ignite – creativity is what we do best and our curriculum ignites possibilities and raises aspirations
Innovate – our curriculum and teaching methods celebrate and encourage innovation. We model this as a school where we develop excellent practice using educational ideas from a wide range of other settings. However, because we have the child’s best interests at heart at all times, we also:
- challenge unnecessary conventional notions and
- offer broad and flexible alternatives to educating children
In practice this means that Dame Catherine Harpur’s School and Nursery, a well-established, small independent mainstream school also benefits from offering membership for home-schooled children and from September 2019 flexi-schooling ; offering an affordable education with a child-centred and stress-free approach for a variety of needs.
With a diverse community of children who love to learn, we promote opportunities for parents to have a higher level of involvement in their child’s learning. We believe that every child should have a positive learning experience so encourage parents to work in partnership with us to develop what works best for them – whether it is taking advantage of our unique offer of part-time attendance models or by taking part in our engaging creative curriculum full-time.
We have the freedom to :
- value children for who they are
- work with each child’s experiences and interests to build confidence and inspire
- recognise that the little things make a big difference
We value every minute of our children’s education but this does not mean rushing them through targets but allowing them to make the most of every opportunity. And we make the most of their natural energy and inquisitiveness.
We believe the educational, social and emotional needs of each child are best served in a small-scale environment – our maximum class size is 15. This means that we can cater for children’s uniqueness and specialisms, nurturing and developing these through our own tailored curriculum and special projects.