Preparing for the Prep School

We ensure that children leaving the Pre-Prep feel very relaxed and confident about moving to Year 3, which has its home in the Sharman Wing of the Main House.

They move into classrooms that look very much like those in the Pre-Prep, with walls covered in colourful, bold, age-appropriate displays.

The learning approach and single classroom-based learning with a class teacher is familiar.

Our children know the Westbourne Way, our moral and value compass, and they will be recognised for positive behaviour much in the same way as in the Pre-Prep.

There is a comprehensive handover from the current class teachers to the Year 3 teachers. At the end of the summer term in Year 2, we organise a ‘move up day’ for the children and parents during which they spend time in the new classroom with the Year 3 teacher.

There are, of course, new elements of school life in Year 3. The children have a new timetable and increased independence at playtime to match their growing minds and bodies. They have a greater number of PE and games each week. They go to the Millennium Hall for Prep School assemblies as well as more intimate Junior School assemblies for Year 3 and 4 . They are involved in Prep School activities – such as our poetry competition - and perhaps most importantly for the children, they join a patrol and become an Otter, Owl, Panther or Tiger.

Years of educational experience allow us to match carefully children’s progression through the school with gradual and age-appropriate increments of responsibility and independence. Your child will feel safe and secure as they move up to the Prep School.

Come and meet our teachers and pupils