Teaching a Creative Curriculum
“Pupils are excellent at making decisions that influence their daily life and future. The youngest pupils in the Pre-Prep direct much of their own learning in their creative curriculum. They decide what direction their learning and play will take by following their imagination and curiosity.”
ISI Report 2018
At Ardingly Pre-Prep, our Creative Curriculum is all about inspiring eager and self-motivated learners. This covers all the essential skills they need: reading, writing, mathematics, scientific investigation, and much more.
What sets us apart is the bespoke way we craft the curriculum. Every term, we talk to the children to find out what their interests are and what they want to learn. Then the teachers build the curriculum around the children’s interests, meaning no two Pre-Prep terms are ever the same. You won’t find your children being taught an ‘off the shelf’ lesson that is rolled out year after year, ignoring the children’s interests.
Our Creative Curriculum really is the most stimulating and exciting way to teach and learn. It encourages children to become self-motivated learners. It’s our opportunity to create those very special memories about learning to last the whole of their lives.
The Creative Curriculum is then broken down into three exciting stages:
The Stunning Starter
At the beginning of each topic, teachers use ingenuity and creativity for an exciting start. This draws the children in, eager to know more.
Recent stunning starters have been very varied: finding a dinosaur egg in the school grounds; receiving some magic beans from Jack and being asked to look after them, a letter from Ada Lovelace asking for our help to design something; or staying after school to gaze at the stars from the school field.
The Marvellous Middle
To keep enthusiasm for a topic going throughout the term, we do something interesting mid-term, like heading to the Woods for a Teddy Bears’ Picnic, a visit from a Pirate to teach us more about life on a ship and famous pirate, or a day of dressing up as winter animals to undertake a Winter Olympics.
The Fabulous Finish
We like to end every topic on a high, celebrating the children’s work and usually inviting parents in to share in their success. For example, a Museum of Teddy Bears had children as the experts explaining the displays, and a Food Fair featured Reception children doing a cooking demo, with tasty treats for parents.