Herne Hill School

Since our foundation in 1976, we have had one purpose: to develop young children to their best potential and launch them on a trajectory of happy, healthy and successful lives.

We believe that everything at Herne Hill School combines to make it the perfect setting for early schooling, including our ethos, grounds and facilities, curriculum and the expertise of our dedicated staff as well as many little details embedded in how we tackle school life on a daily basis.

We are a member of the Independent Schools Association, the Independent Schools Council and the National Day Nurseries Association and are proud of the stellar assessment by the Independent Schools Inspectorate, the results our children regularly obtain.

“Love – Care – Excellence” encapsulates our commitment to excellence and our conviction that love and care are prerequisites for a child’s optimal development. They are essential to awakening innate curiosity and establishing a positive cycle of learning, success, confidence and happiness.

This philosophy is manifested in the school’s caring, friendly and fun atmosphere, so that children can feel secure about themselves and their learning. At the same time, achievement, respect and discipline play a prominent role. Being co‑educational school and applying informal admissions procedures additionally enables us to build a diverse community.

We seek to instil an understanding of the global community, for example, by highlighting the importance of caring for the environment and through our charitable link with Khanya Primary School in South Africa.

We are, of course, fully committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children at the school. To help us live out our ethos of Love – Care – Excellence on a daily basis, we have developed a scheme of nine golden rules, which all children learn from Kindergarten up. They provide a behavioural compass for everyone at the school – during their time at Herne Hill School and beyond.

The scheme enables the children to learn nuanced aspects of each golden rule in assemblies, the classroom and other school life opportunities. It includes comprehension and award medallions, a sticker booklet and tokens for collection as well as a special metal coin for our Year 2 leavers as a lasting memento of the social and emotional skills they learned at Herne Hill School.

We have created and refined our own five-year curriculum with the aims of developing “the whole child”, instilling an enthusiasm for learning, and building strong foundations for our pupils’ future education. It is built around the statutory curriculum for all children in the UK aged 0–5, the Early Years Foundation Stage, and the national curriculum requirements for Key Stage 1. It also acknowledges principles of other curricula and incorporates our years of experience teaching this age range. Its underpinning pillars are playing and exploring, active learning, creating and thinking critically.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) forms the basis of our curriculum in the Kindergarten, Pre‑Reception and Reception classes. We achieve the goals of each of the seven areas of learning through thoughtful planning of the learning environment and experiences which are tailored to every child’s needs.

Our outdoor environment plays an important role in delivering the curriculum. The Kindergarten and Pre‑Reception classes have free‑flow access to their own covered outdoor space, while the Reception children benefit from timetabled access to the playground, trim trail and outdoor classrooms.

In Years 1 and 2, the children broadly follow the Key Stage 1 national curriculum, adapted and enhanced in order to provide the best possible education and prepare them for entry into their next schools. Play‑based activities still feature yet are increasingly phased out during Year 1, completing the transition to more formal learning.

This entails greater emphasis on the core subjects of mathematics, English and science, without neglecting the whole child development. A key feature of our approach is that units of work are often integrated into cross‑curricular topics. For example, in Year 1 much is taught through the topics of ‘Toys from the past’ and ‘Life cycles’ and in Year 2 the children learn about ‘The Great Fire of London’ and ‘Pirates’. The children find learning through this approach both exciting and enjoyable.

In Year 2, we make a feature of the children becoming the ‘big’ children at the school, which carries many special roles and responsibilities and is a key reason for the special Herne Hill spark and confidence so often commented on when they move on.

Herne Hill School was founded in 1976 as a nursery school in the charming grounds of the Old Vicarage, tucked away behind St. Paul’s Church. Building on its success and responding to parents’ requests, it expanded in 1986 to also become a pre-preparatory school. Today, Herne Hill School is a thriving, buzzing school with approximately 275 boys and girls aged 2-7 years.