Prep Curriculum

Our daily English lessons include Phonics, Spelling and Grammar, Creative Writing, and Reading Comprehension. At The White House, we believe that reading is fundamental, and we aim to develop fluent, confident readers with a genuine love of literature.

Creative Writing is taught alongside a focus text. We are intentional in our choice of books, selecting texts that are current, accessible, and thought-provoking, with a strong emphasis on diversity among characters.

We cover a wide range of writing genres, incorporating both fiction and non-fiction, to ensure our pupils are well prepared for all literary challenges.

Our cyclical maths curriculum supports children through progression and revision. We aim to promote enjoyment of the subject by encouraging problem solving and reasoning, while developing a secure knowledge base. We recognise that children excel in different ways, so we use small group sessions through our Extension programme and provide additional adult support for those who find the subject challenging. We promote a growth mindset approach, where children feel safe to make mistakes and ask questions to support their learning.

With our newly refurbished STEAM room, we enjoy pushing boundaries and testing our ideas and hypotheses. We incorporate science as a real and meaningful subject area with the creativity of engineering and exploring the world around us. Science is taught as a practical subject; there is an emphasis on making the subject fun and accessible. We aim to nurture our children’s natural curiosity with frequent trips to support and enhance our learning, visits and workshops run by specialists and instilling awe and wonder into our budding scientists. Children develop investigative skills from an early age and are encouraged to ask questions, work collaboratively and to extend their understanding of scientific concepts.

Being part of a multilingual community, language is celebrated at our school and all children participate in weekly lessons of French and Spanish. In Years 5 and 6 we extend our linguistics to Latin. Our exciting and engaging lessons prepare our children to communicate confidently and prove very useful at our celebratory Year 6 residential trip to Seville!

Based in our widely resourced STEAM room, our children design, paint, sculpt and sketch their ideas and adaptations. We enable our children to breach beyond their own personal barriers and explore Art with confidence. We enjoy using techniques from well known artists’ work as well as looking at pieces from different cultures and studying new and upcoming artists. Our children exhibit their work and share their efforts with family, friends and teachers. Using our onsite Kiln, the children enjoy sculpting, glazing and showcasing their creations with our specialist Art Teacher. To support and further develop our knowledge, our specialist Art teacher alongside class teachers do frequent visits to galleries with our children.

Drama is taught weekly in every year group by our specialist drama teacher. We develop and nurture confident performers and encourage our children to take part. At the end of every school year all children will take part in a production which is performed in a local theatre for parents and family members to view. We incorporate drama into other areas of the curriculum, assemblies and celebratory poetry recitals held at our local church. To further our children’s confidence in communication, we participate in LAMDA examinations. This is an optional qualification that our specialist drama and theatre studies teacher supports and guides our children with.

There are many music making opportunities at The White House and many children have individual music tuition. Children can learn a variety of instruments including, but not limited to, piano, guitar. violin, flute, cello, cornet, voice drums and clarinet. Throughout the year, formal and informal concerts provide both the more accomplished and the newer performers alike with opportunities to perform. Our children participate in weekly lessons with our specialist music teacher who is a multi talented musician and vocalist. Alongside weekly lessons, our children have the opportunity to extend their music learning in after school clubs and in the summer term there is greater emphasis on rehearsal and practice to support our end of year productions.

At The White House sport is integral to our ethos focusing on determination and teamwork. Sport takes place daily and  each term we change our sporting focus to nurture and progress core skills. Our Specialist sports teachers coach our children in explicit skills for each sport as well as transferable skills that enhance all games. During the Autumn term our children focus on football and netball. In the Spring term hockey and rugby and in the Summer term we teach cricket, tennis, athletics and rounders. Fixtures from year 3-year 6 take place weekly.

All children, from Reception- Year 6 children, will receive weekly swimming lessons offsite throughout the year. Children from Year 3 and above will take part in a Swimming Gala where children showcase their techniques and skills.

Our children enjoy participating in our Sports Day in Summer term where we showcase our practiced skills and earn points for our house teams. Our Specialist Gymnastics coach works with our children from Reception to Year 6 and we hold regular inter house and inter school competitions.

Enterprise is part of the curriculum for KS2 and is an introduction to Business Studies. Children have the opportunity to create different businesses, directed by the teacher. They learn to work in small groups and even present their ideas to the younger children. Projects in the past have included Year 3 planning their own school trip and Year 6 making board games for Reception class. Enterprise uses skills from all their lessons-Maths for budgeting, Drama for presenting, Art for marketing and Science for creativity. It is hugely exciting to see what the children develop every year.

On Wednesday afternoons Years 4 – 6 are given the opportunity to attend an additional lesson of their choice. This ranges from Art History, Dance, Debate and STEM. We find that these sessions help children to acquire skills and talents that often support scholarships for senior schools and children love mixing between the different year groups. Children choose one “choice lesson” for the term and swap termly.

We understand that the world is growing and we are preparing our children for careers and jobs that have not yet been invented. We ensure that we provide children with a fun interactive but challenging computing curriculum that aids the evolving world that we live in and enables children to approach technology with confidence. We are a google platform school and have a multitude of chromebooks to support our teaching and learning. Computing is not taught as a stand alone subject but is used curriculum wide and for assessment purposes.

Through child-led inquiry, our pupils learn about the world around them through hands-on teaching and learning. Each year group explores a literary link to another country and culture, comparing and contrasting it with our own community. We also celebrate ‘Around the World Week’, during which families from different cultures are invited to share and teach others about their country at a dedicated fair. The week also includes whole-school quizzes on flags, countries, and capital cities. In addition to subject-specific lessons, pupils develop map skills and orienteering through trips and outdoor learning.

We teach History chronologically throughout the school with Year 6 studying most recent historical events such as Apartheid and the Russian Revolution. Our lessons are taught through artefacts, museum trips and external specialist workshops. We ensure that the subject encompasses culture, food, ways of living and provides our children with sound knowledge and understanding of the time period. By the end of their time at The White House, we hope our children have a well supported understanding of how our world as we know it today has been shaped by past civilisations and that they can draw links to cultures, inventions and people of significance within their everyday lives at present.

Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHEE) is central to the ethos of White House Prep and is integrated into all aspects of school life. Every child is valued and encouraged to recognise that they each have an individual contribution to make to the school and to the wider world. Our PSHEE programme is designed to enable pupils to become healthy, independent and responsible members of society, with a positive sense of self-identity and a strong sense of personal worth.

We recognise the importance of wellbeing and how exciting yet daunting at times to start a new school at Reception. Our two Reception classes focus on building strong friendships, communication and language skills and are incredibly warm and welcoming environments. We have a rich outdoor learning program which includes Forest School, as well as our ‘Nurture’ programme. ‘Nurture’ is an extra curriculum programme focusing on growing the children’s interest outside the classroom. Children learn practical life skills in four small groups. This includes activities such as financial awareness, mini architects, budding scientists and team building skills such as mapping the local area. Pupil voice is central to planning, and teachers tailor activities to reflect the children’s interests and curiosity. Children feel secure to communicate in different environments to a classroom setting, build relationships and build on their passions and interests.