Repton Prep Five Year Strategic Plan

A PERFECTLY BALANCED EDUCATION IN THE HEART OF ENGLAND.

It shows our plans for progress in all areas of the School, tying in with our philosophy that any successful school is always looking ahead to the future; being pro-active as opposed to reactive is viewed as an essential component to enable us to respond to the ever-changing world in which we live. In order to produce global citizens, we have to provide the facilities and opportunities that promote our values of respect, truth, wholeness of person and excellence.

The strategy focuses on the benefits that now accrue from being a throughschool; when Repton undertook the scoping of a Masterplan project with a firm of architects who specialise in major educational developments, Repton Prep was included at every stage. You will see their proposals reflected in this plan.

The document is laid out by area of activity, but we are keen to highlight that the set of transferable skills pupils gain from a balanced curriculum which champions success for all is at the heart of our vision. The whole school community functions at its best when we interweave academics, sport, extra-curricular and pastoral opportunities at every touchpoint. All can, and do, work seamlessly together to enhance overall performance.

Our pupils are the future leaders, and we are therefore rightly ambitious for their education, believing that every child can find and nurture their individual passion at Repton Prep. The plan you will read over the coming pages will enable us to develop our provision as we work in partnership with all families, to ensure that we continue to thrive by providing a modern and relevant education in a traditional setting.

THIS IS OUR VISION FOR REPTON PREP’S STRATEGIC PLAN IN THE FORTHCOMING YEARS.

Like the bird in our shield, the sky is the limit for all learners at Repton Prep and we want every child to believe that anything is possible when hard work is coupled with the opportunity for success.

THE CONTEXT FOR OUR STRATEGY

ESTABLISHED IN 1940, REPTON PREP MOVED TO ITS CURRENT LOCATION, THE GRAND PALLADIAN MANSION OF THE BURDETTS IN 1947.

Nestled in 55 acres of fields and woods with its own lake, excellent classroom facilities, extensive sports grounds, an inspirational Pre-Prep and Forest School activities, it is easy to see why Repton Prep is so proud of what it offers:

• A traditional yet totally modern co-educational boarding and day school of 400 pupils from 3 to 13.

• A commitment to small class sizes so that every child is known as an individual.

• Dedicated and skilled specialist staff who extend and support pupils across all curriculum areas.

• An inspirational campus which all pupils from Nursery to Year 8 have access to, promoting collaboration and friendships across year groups.

• Ambitious curricula in music, art, drama and DT are much in evidence, alongside the established academic subjects, and enable our pupils to sit for scholarships at Repton and other prestigious schools.

• Outstanding and expanding facilities, thanks to its through-school position, which allows a greater degree of shared teaching, coaching and facilities.

• A House system which enables pupils to engage in teamwork and charitable initiatives for the benefit of the wider community, as well as providing opportunities for democracy and leadership.

• Enhanced focus on transition to senior school – a crucial time for our Year 8 pupils – which requires close individual attention and the breadth of curriculum that our through-school structure affords.

• High academic standards, in local and national comparisons.

We have always been closely aligned with Repton and now that position has been formalised – what was previously Foremarke Hall is now an integral part of Repton School. Repton Prep enjoys being part of the growing family of schools across the Middle East and Asia, and particularly with further developments in the UK. This brings many immediate benefits to Repton Prep, as part of a long tradition and as an integral player in the vision for the future.

ACADEMIC STUDY

In these formative years, it is vital to associate learning with enjoyment, interest and reward.

Our approach, particularly in the Nursery and Pre-Prep, is to make learning a joy and an adventure, whilst instilling behaviours that will make the more formal teaching of the Prep more accessible. However, our belief is that new concepts are learnt, understood and embedded through a practical ‘hands-on’ approach. We believe that everyone learns better through active participation and every child is encouraged to find their passion. We then nurture this passion – from mathematicians to musicians, from sportspeople to scientists, and from engineers to economists; we provide a foundation for all.

At the Prep, a balance is achieved between core subjects and the creative arts – music, drama, art, design – through engagement

both in the classroom and out in the extensive grounds, in which we nurture the interplay of participation, performance and enjoyment from the outset. It is this interplay that develops in our pupils a curiosity, a willingness to learn and the ability to think independently. Our approach at Repton Prep is to give our pupils the tools they need to carve their own path – those of an ethic of hard work, continued determination and resilience, and the sense of inner discipline.

It is our belief that schools should focus their resources on the aptitudes that are uniquely human – personal, social, creative, physical, moral and spiritual. A space and culture which promotes entrepreneurial activity is essential to nurture and develop these qualities in our young learners.

OBJECTIVES

To use data tracking and analysis to inform teaching practices, embracing the latest pedagogical thinking that makes learning a natural, enjoyable part of life for all ages.

To promote opportunities for community and collaboration across the school and wider curriculum that enable the whole school to come together.

To make sure that the academic transition to senior school is a smooth and universally positive experience for each child and seek opportunities to develop independence and entrepreneurial skills.

To embed digital literacy and responsibility from the outset and upgrade and expand the existing technology provision.

To continue to build breadth into the curriculum in order to prepare each child for the real world in which they will work and live; seamlessly linking with their senior school experience and beyond.

To increase our curriculum to include Textiles, Dance and Food Technology.

To increase the regularity of visits from professionals such as writers, poets, historians, inventors, scientists, and business entrepreneurs, in order to move ‘subjects’ out of the classroom and into life.

To reinforce the EAL programme, in light of the expanding Repton family of schools.

To continue to expand a differentiated approach to learning for all pupils by embedding extension and support in all lessons.

PLANS TO DELIVER ON OBJECTIVES

Redevelopment of the theatre to expand its footprint, increase opportunities for whole school events and provide a better performance space for all.

Continued maintenance and development of the stand-alone Pre-Prep building, embedding the magic that is created at this formative age.

Improve digital technology and innovation through increased resources and a more flexible teaching and learning space.

Investment in a bespoke educational programme for Years 7 and 8 to develop skills and independence through an enhanced curriculum offering, maintaining academic rigour but expanding learning opportunities.

To review the curriculum across all subjects in order to capture equality, diversity and inclusivity through a range of subjects by magnifying curriculum themes to include greater variety in taught topic areas.

PASTORAL CARE

We create the climate for each child to find their voice and to aim high. These things can only ever happen if every child is happy and therefore has both the capacity and willingness to embrace all the opportunities that school life affords.

And what does Repton provide? Endless opportunities, friendships that last a lifetime, unbounded joy and happiness, appreciation of the community, the ability to lead, and the knowledge that anything is possible if you put your mind to it; resilience, courage and kindness give us the tools to keep trying and help others to succeed as well. Pastoral care is the anchor of school life and the structure that underpins our educational model at Repton Prep.

Pastoral care at Repton Prep is about kindness; it encapsulates the essence of our community and is interwoven throughout every aspect of school life.

OBJECTIVES

FOR PUPILS

To maintain, enhance and expand a first class, co-educational modern boarding facility alongside a fully-integrated day pupil experience.

To ensure consistent and coordinated care for each individual pupil through effective communication and increasingly sophisticated methods of pastoral assessment.

To develop and enhance our flexible boarding opportunities to enable all pupils to benefit from the advantages and skills that a boarding culture promotes.

To use to a greater degree our wonderful woods, fields and lake to reinforce the link between respect for each other and respect for the environment.

To offer increased opportunities for independence and leadership through positions of responsibility, committees, and the promotion of trust of pupils throughout the school, but particularly in Years 7 and 8.

To provide consistently high quality food at mealtimes that is healthy and appetising as well as being an education in sustainability and nutrition.

To ensure that the meals taken together daily are an object lesson in conversation, manners and social skills.

To increase and optimise the flow of information on each child year on year, which feeds into the smooth transition from Prep to Senior school.

To recognise in the lives of the older children that, developmentally, we have at Repton Prep the best of both worlds – a through-school and yet two locations, allowing continuity but also change.

FOR STAFF

To ensure a culture of openness, organisation and accountability across the entire school, with a focus on transparency and communication.

To attract staff of the highest quality from all sectors and provide them with outstanding pastoral care, and a collaborative forum in which to work.

To ensure all staff have access to training opportunities and courses to instil pride in performance and investment in development.

To promote opportunities for academic collaboration across both school sites and the ability to build a true through-school curriculum.

To embed a wellbeing structure that ensures all staff can perform at their best and shows an understanding of each staff member as an individual.

PLANS TO DELIVER ON OBJECTIVES

Create additional boarding capacity and review the current boarding structure to ensure the best possible experience of boarding school life through enhanced facilities and careful reconfiguration.

Upgrade catering and commit to regular reviews of our offering to ensure health driven decision making.

Increased investment in continuing professional development opportunities to ensure all staff are engaged in their own development and are equipped to deliver our vision for a modern education.

Improvements to location and function of the Health and Wellbeing Centre to improve efficacy at the heart of the school.

Ongoing development of dedicated pupil spaces and opportunities for leadership and independence in our pupils.

Visiting speakers for pupils, parents and staff to promote wellbeing, self-care and mental health.

THEATRE

Performing in all its forms is an important aspect of life here. The ability and willingness to perform is a valuable life skill that requires bravery and instils resilience. Our expanded theatre capacity will bring us many new opportunities; for whole school events, for major theatre productions, for theatre in the round, for dance, for music, as well as the flexibility given by the ability to divide the enlarged theatre into smaller units. It will also bring us valuable social space in which to bring our whole Prep community together.

SPORT

The breadth of sporting opportunities and the scale of facilities at Repton Prep allows all pupils to participate in a wide-range of experiences through curriculum lessons, activities, training sessions and competitive play.

The skills learnt through sporting endeavours such as teamwork, perseverance, resilience and communication, are vital in all aspects of school life and beyond.

Central to our approach is inclusivity – enabling opportunities for all, across a wide range of sporting disciplines. Pupils can then refine and develop their interests and skills as they move to the inspirational sporting facilities at Repton School.

There is a careful balance between participation for all through PE, Games, and Swimming lessons in curriculum time, and specific skilled coaching for those showing talent, commitment and passion.

OBJECTIVES

To consolidate Repton Prep’s position as one of the most successful co-educational prep schools in sport.

To encourage broad and total participation via the number of sports on offer and the number of teams in each sport, and ensure that the ability to develop and progress underpins our approach.

To promote pride in representing Repton, an enjoyment of participation, and the benefits of physical exercise in relation to mental health.

To provide not only plentiful inter-school fixtures but also interhouse competition, which helps cement the sense of belonging to the House system (Alexander, Mountbatten, Tedder and Wavell).

To focus on a co-educational approach to sport which means that staff collaborate effectively to discuss individual schedules for pupils with commitments across a range of disciplines.

To upgrade, via closer links with the senior school, coaching and facilities for the core sports, thereby maintaining the reputation locally and nationally for being amongst the leaders in Under 13 sport.

PLANS TO DELIVER ON OBJECTIVES

The addition of a second (half) Hockey Astro or an extension to the existing newly resurfaced Astro.

Phase 2 completion of the Swimming Pool changing rooms.

Increased engagement with parents through talks from external speakers and panel discussions with Sports department staff.

Review development of the Sports Hall facility both aesthetically and practically.

BOARDING

Repton Prep has a strong ethos of protecting the wonder and fun of childhood – this is particularly evident in the boarding community where staff and pupils who live on site, call Repton Prep their home. The re-design of our Boarding Houses will bring modernity without losing charm. We will create a ‘my place’ feeling with more personal space as well as age-appropriate social spaces for games, TV, fun and, yes, just chilling.

EXTRA CURRICULAR INVOLVEMENT

Repton Prep already has a strong reputation in this area as we recognise that a balanced breadth of opportunity across a wide-range of disciplines, and a commitment to developing pupils in all areas, underpins a successful preparatory school.

An outstanding extra-curricular programme promotes personal development, broadens horizons, and deepens learning. It offers the chance for staff and pupils to interact in a more informal style and develops interest and talent in a variety of areas.

It is recognised that life skills are developed early and that many of these come from the group activities available at school,

as well as much of the fun and laughter! We provide a broad range of experiences from our activities programme to our Outward Bound trips, and indeed residential trips linked to a range of curriculum subjects. We want to challenge pupils to think about the way they work, give them the ability to be self-aware and self-critical, whilst promoting teamwork and collaboration through seeking and accepting advice.

EXTRA CURRICULAR INVOLVEMENT

OBJECTIVES

To make sure that life for each child at Repton Prep is felt to be an adventure, because when children are happy they will learn and retain information with a greater depth of understanding.

To find more opportunities to showcase the results of our activities and clubs, which are already sector-leading in this area (from gardening to chess, from outdoor cooking to fencing), in recognition of the importance of the whole child.

To encourage all to take part in creative activities, especially music, drama, art, design.

To ensure that the activities programme supports and extends the aims of the curriculum.

To bring leading exponents and inspirational figures to the school for demonstrations of their art, such as performers, authors, artists and actors.

To cater proactively and consequentially to the growing scope of digitally based activities.

To review the placement and purpose of residential trips to enhance the curriculum and show a breadth of opportunity for discovery and involvement.

To ensure regular performance opportunities for all in a range of disciplines so that confidence in performing is a way of life as opposed to an obstacle to learning.

PLANS TO DELIVER ON OBJECTIVES

Redevelopment of the theatre to provide increased space for extended performance opportunities, particularly in music and drama.

Creation of dance studio facilities.

Increased objectives and investment in Greenpower initiatives to enable us to compete locally and nationally.

More diverse use of the Art room to facilitate exhibitions to include Textiles and Sculpture.

Reinstate a programme of residential trips in a variety of areas to facilitate increased engagement outside of school, and on a more global scale.

Investment in a programme of external speakers to develop an ambitious approach to the curriculum, and to reinforce the wide-ranging benefits of inspirational personal stories and real-life experiences.

OUTDOOR

Repton Prep’s grounds are perhaps our most wonderful gift. We can now set about developing our beautiful and varied site for many more activities and teaching opportunities; an enhanced Forest School (where there really is a forest!), outdoor classroom space, and a fabulous walled garden for children to learn about sustainability, planting and growing. There will be an extension to our current Astro, which will add to our ability to coach sport effectively all year round, as well as the next phase of our Swimming Pool redevelopment, which will improve and expand the capacity of our lessons and swim club programme. These opportunities combine to generate life skills and create an understanding of the outdoors, which must not be lost to this generation of children.

SPIRIT OF PLACE

Repton Prep is a way of life. Our purpose is to create a caring community where everyone feels proud of where they learn and work. The inspirational facilities and boarding ethos sit at the heart of school life.

Success lies with the ability and interest to take control of your own learning; we allow pupils to feel safe enough to make mistakes and therefore be curious, engaged and questioning. Balance is a word that is often used across the Repton family of schools, because balance implies that every element is available in the correct proportions; this is particularly vital at the Prep school when every experience is pivotal in shaping the pupils in our care. In this way, the development of their minds, their bodies and their imaginations can happen with purpose but without pressure.

OBJECTIVES

To instil in pupils from an early age the feeling of belonging to a bigger community, of which they will always be a part.

To ensure that a Repton Prep education is available to those who will maximise all that it has to offer through life-changing bursaries.

To make initiatives and actions in sustainability and environmental awareness integral to policy and practice, and show a commitment to the implementation of pupil voice and actions.

To ensure that boarding continues to sit at the heart of the site both physically and culturally.

To exploit the opportunities offered by technology to encourage the sense of community.

To create, even at this young age, an awareness of our global schools, educating children from all over the world.

PLANS TO DELIVER ON OBJECTIVES

A programme of sustainability actions that shows commitment to our responsibilities and responds to pupil voice.

The ability to increase opportunities for engagement across the family of schools with online activities, programmes and competitions.

Increased opportunities for engagement with the wider community, initially through charitable initiatives.

Investment into the boarding community through a review of the structure and the purpose of buildings.

Relocation of the Health and Wellbeing Centre to ensure Foremarke Hall sits at the heart of the school community.

The creation of a wellbeing garden and mindful space that would offer opportunities for pupils to engage in different activities during their free time.

The embedding of our approach to transformational bursaries.

The creation of an outdoor teaching and learning space in our inspirational woods.

And as our pupils grow, more serious, consequential learning takes place, but play and laughter are ever-present. Our job is to instil a love of learning into every pupil so that every day at school is filled with happiness and joy, an eagerness to learn and the creation of special memories and friendships.

Our woods, our lake, our games fields as well as all our class lessons, coupled with our gifted teachers and inspirational teaching, creates a wonderful, and many say magical, alchemy.

We will protect that, and out of it will come global citizens with a set of transferable life skills, the security born of happiness, and the academic confidence to step up to the next phase of their education, and indeed lead our future. And we cannot wait to be a part of that future.

Vicky

Mrs

Harding Head

We do not want our children to grow up too fast; childhood is the precious time when imagination knows no bounds – at a young age, superheroes are not stories, they are career options.

A PERFECTLY BALANCED EDUCATION IN THE HEART OF ENGLAND.