Hampton Court House

At Hampton Court House, we strive to equip our children with the emotional literacy they will require to negotiate the vicissitudes of life and thus to find happiness and fulfilment.Hampton Court House is an independent co-educational school. We take children from Nursery (three year olds) to Year 13 (eighteen year olds). The Sixth Form opened in September 2015. All students are prepared for 13+ Common Entrance and/or scholarship examinations of the leading boys’ and girls’ schools, although most children elect to stay on to take their GCSEs and A levels at Hampton Court House.

Hampton Court House is situated in its own private parkland, a 30 to 40 minute drive from Central London or a 35 minute train journey from Waterloo Station.It is important to us that children enjoy being here and look forward to coming to school. We wish to lay the foundations of a lifelong love of learning.

The School is distinctive in the weight we place on achieving fluency in other languages; we instil in all our pupils a firm cultural and artistic framework, which underpins all their academic studies. And we seek to empower our students with the confidence to express themselves effectively in both their public and private lives.

We work with sparkling young minds – which sometimes need to be channelled and which sometimes need to be given free rein. Such is the paradox of education – there are no rules. Original thought requires the ability to think beyond, to adapt, to change and to innovate. All this is quite different from that necessary and vital skill of passing examinations, where there most certainly are rules (they’re called ‘mark schemes’) to be followed.

At Hampton Court House, we value the diverse ethnic backgrounds of our pupils and staff. We note of the Department for Education’s (DfE) requirement “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs” and these values are at the heart of our school culture.

Academic excellence is developed in all our students through our commitment to an intellectual, creative and questioning environment.We value individuality, originality and independence; we provide inspirational, traditional lessons with content-driven teaching. We believe the genius of creative expression is built upon the confidence of sure foundations.

We strive to give our students the best possible grounding to take on life’s challenges, through their knowledge of other cultures and languages, and through their own self-awareness, and their acquisition of effective communication skills, in order that they may influence and shape the future.

Hampton Court house has an extensive and diverse co-curricular programme which runs throughout the school from Early Years to Sixth Form. We have a wide base of clubs and societies which evolve to meet the needs of our students. If a student has a particular interest that they would like to pursue, foster or propagate then we will do what we can to help them. We encourage students to take part in at least one club a term with most choosing to do more.

The Governors support and challenge the school leadership team, monitor the quality of teaching and the progress of school improvement, and oversee behaviour and safety.Acting as ‘critical friend’ the Governors do not involve themselves directly in operational matters, which are the responsibility of the Head and the Senior Leadership Team. The Governors’ role is primarily strategic.

Hampton Court House is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people, and require all staff and volunteers actively to share this commitment.The safeguarding of children is the responsibility of everyone within the Hampton Court House community.

The curriculum is taught through discrete subjects. Each subject teacher is a member of a department combining similar subjects. The members of the department meet most weeks to discuss progress, cross-curricular links and activities, differentiation strategies and Gifted and Talented enhancements.The schemes of work should set out the range of topics for each subject to be taught over each term, how individual topics are to be taught, what resources will be used, and what opportunities will be taken for assessing pupils’ learning and progress.

Each department has also written a handbook detailing the principles and vision of the department. The handbooks also detail: textbooks and resources used; assessment and evaluation outlines; advice on applying school policy in the context of the subject; a department development plan.The School supplies a template which may be used as a tool in the short term planning of lessons. This planning includes how the work will be differentiated, how it will be assessed, and what the pupil outcomes will be.Children are set into group in many subjects in higher years. This enables the teaching to focus on a particular level.

The Early Years is guided by and compliant with the EYFS Framework and goes beyond this significantly in some areas such as the early introduction for foreign languages, and early reading programme, the Forest School provision, and specialist teaching in art, ballet and music.