Specialist teaching from Nursery up: music, sport, ICT and French

Ask a three-year-old at Kew College Prep what they did at school today and the answer might be French. Or dance. Or music and movement, or PE, or a session on the computers. From their very first term, our children enjoy a breadth of learning that few nursery settings can match, and it is taught by specialists.

Specialist teaching in the early years can sound advanced, even unnecessary, and it surprises some visiting families. In practice it is one of the most powerful things we do. A specialist music teacher hears the child who is finding the beat and the child who is not, and knows how to support both. A French lesson at this age is not really about vocabulary lists; it is about the delight of discovering that words can sound completely different and still mean the same thing.

That expertise continues as children move up through Infant House and Junior House, where small class sizes and highly qualified teachers help children excel in core subjects and specialist areas alike. Sport, art, drama and music are not treated as the pleasant edges of the timetable here, they are part of how children discover what they are good at, and part of what keeps academic life balanced and enjoyable.

The same thinking shapes our co-curricular clubs. Each term, Junior House children choose from a wide range of after-school clubs, chess, fencing, robotics, hockey, jewellery making, touch typing, choir, wind band, yoga, skateboarding and a good deal more. Some are led by our own staff, others by outside providers and parent volunteers, and we plan the programme deliberately so that it caters to a variety of interests.

There should be something on the list for the child who loves a stage, the child who loves a puzzle, and the child who simply wants to be outside.Breadth is not a distraction from academic success, it is part of it. Children given the chance to try many things discover their talents sooner, and carry that confidence back into the classroom. If you would like to see it for yourself, we would love to welcome you to visit us in Kew.