St Swithun's Prep School

Word From The Head

From Liz Norris, Head

Welcome to St Swithun’s prep school, where children's happiness is at the heart of everything we do. We know that confidence is fundamental to success, so all activities are characterised by a palpable sense of fun and enjoyable challenge to ensure that pupils flourish in every way during their time with us. Children here all enjoy a huge range of opportunities to shine wherever their interests lie; they are guided to give their very best, astonish their audiences and receive their applause. They are the leaders of tomorrow, and it is an enormous honour and privilege to be a key influence in their development. Whilst gently selective and keenly focussed on intellectual rigour, we offer a genuine all-round education and we place enormous importance on creative and performing arts. We offer an inclusive, yet appropriately competitive sports programme; and we encourage children to have fun, take risks and get stuck in to all that we have on offer - whether inside the classroom or outside in our fantastic forty-five acres of grounds.

Our pre-prep curriculum, including our co-educational preschool and girls-only provision from reception through to year 2, is designed around the children’s interests and intrinsic motivations, harnessing their love of asking questions and allowing them to become independent learners. Passions for learning, literature and life are developed from the earliest of days. Then, throughout our junior classes from year 3 to year 6, we continue to hold the development of character and the pursuit of academic excellence in equally high regard. Children enjoy a weekly timetable that is opulent and varied; it emphasises the core subjects of English, mathematics, science and computing but balances these with a huge amount of sports, humanities, arts, languages and extra-curricular opportunities too. Although we carefully prepare children for successful and stress-free transition to a range of leading independent schools, including our own senior school, we never resort to a meaningless hot-housing approach and remain committed to maintaining a rich and inspiring curriculum.

I hope you enjoy reading these web pages, but nothing compares to seeing the school in reality. Do please come and visit; feel the St Swithun's magic for yourself. It's who we are;
it's what we do. We absolutely love it, and it will be a pleasure to show you around.