Lower School
Reception
One of the main benefits of Westbrook Hay is the small pupil/staff ratio that enables our staff to develop every child’s true learning potential and their achievements. The children follow a structured phonics scheme and are introduced to the school reading scheme as well as the joys of reading “real” books. Chilrden continue to make the breakthrough to numeracy and begin to be able to manipulate numbers and solve numeric problems. All children learn at different rates and when the children are ready they progress naturally onto the Key Stage One curriculum.
The children are taught French from Reception upwards, giving the children confidence with a second language when they are very young and as a sound basis for the foreign languages they encounter further up the school.
View our new Lower School building.
Year One
The children come into Year 1 ready to make the transition from the Foundatiion stage to the National Curriculum Key Stage One. They again benefit from a small staff/pupil ratio that ensures their reading, writing, and numeracy skills are fully developed.
During Year 1 the children will begin to be taught in ability sets for numeracy and literacy which is an extremely effective way of building the children’s confidence and enabling children to progress. The children will also benefit from specialist teaching for D&T in the fully equipped DT lab, IT with the Head of ICT in the new IT suites and also PE and Dance with specialist teachers.
Extra Curricular
The children are able to benefit from some wonderful extra activities whilst in lower school. They can have ballet lessons with Mrs Henderson, musical instrumental lessons with one the peripatetic staff, sports club and also have drama lessons.
Parents as Partners
At Westbrook Hay we believe that parents are the first and most influential teachers that their children will have. We therefore endeavour to form meaningful and effective partnerships with parents to ensure their child’s successful learning and happiness. This process begins before the children join us by various methods including; personal contact through siblings already with us; invitations to open days and special events (such as the very successful Teddy Bear’s Picnic); parents' meetings as part of the induction programme; information from the school prospectus and the school web site.
Once a child has joined us the partnership is developed further by daily contact between the teacher and parents in the classroom. Parents are welcomed to bring their child in to the classroom at the beginning of the day. Progress is reported through a Christmas and summer written report and parents consultation evenings in the Christmas and Easter terms.