The Prep School
The Prep School includes the Pre-prep for children aged 4 to 7, and the ‘Juniors’ for pupils aged 7 to 11. The Pre-prep has its own suite of classrooms and Reception garden for outdoor play, while the ‘Juniors’ have many of their lessons in classrooms set in Gosfield School’s delightful and fully–renovated Victorian mansion.
We have a large, secure playground with colourful interactive games and play equipment. When the weather permits, children also have access to the Prep School Garden with its pond, trees, picnic benches and standing chess game.
As well as our own privileged position within the school grounds, we also reap the advantages of sharing a campus with the Senior School. We enjoy the use of excellent facilities, including a full size multi-purpose Sports Hall, a superb All Weather Sports Surface, a fully refurbished Science Laboratory, a modern Art Room, a Home Economics Room, a Music Suite with Practice Rooms, a Library, an ICT suite and over a hundred acres of parkland.
Prep school children join with senior school students in whole school assemblies and events, as well as in Houses. Having a wide age range of young people in Houses works particularly well, our Prep School children learning from and looking up to the Senior Pupils, who in turn respond admirably to the responsibility of setting a good example.
Similarly, Prep School pupils also have access to specialist teaching from senior teachers in subjects such as Science, Music, Games, Food Technology.
We are deliberately not a big school, preferring to keep down our class sizes to a maximum of twenty. This, along with a strong learning support department and extra support for extending more able children and structured differentiation in lessons, allows us to accommodate each individual child’s needs.
At Gosfield Prep, we aim to accommodate each child’s needs. We closely track pupils’ progress and regularly set individual targets based on teacher and more formal assessment. A very broad range of learning experiences is also offered through our balanced curriculum and large and diversified programme of extra-curricular activities.
The Performing Arts are taken very seriously at Gosfield Prep. As well as performing in assemblies, we have our own popular choir, Christmas Productions and a Spring Concert. We also arrange regular visits to places such as the Royal Opera House, the Cambridge Arts Theatre and other playhouses. Many of our children have already begun instrumental lessons with talented music tutors in purpose built facilities by the time they reach the Juniors.
Sport is a key area in children’s social and physical development, and we back up our structured PE and Games sessions, by offering a variety of sports clubs, including Football, Tennis, Badminton and Netball. Every child in the Prep School also has the opportunity to have at least one term’s swimming lessons each year at the local leisure centre, regardless of his/her ability.
Such a brief summary does not suffice to reflect the all-round wealth and diversity of pupil experiences at Gosfield Prep. We do, however, hope that the above information is enough to whet your appetite to come and see for yourself what makes our school such a happy and effective learning environment.
'Welcome to Gosfield Prep School' (Powerpoint 1.6.Mb).