At Northampton High, we are proud to provide a superb educational offer to girls from aged two to 18. Our girls can join us when they turn two to start their journey through Nursery, Pre-School, Junior School, Senior School and Sixth Form, and we strongly believe they deeply benefit from this choice. The all-through model offers consistency, stability and reassurance and the Northampton High vision enhances the experience to ensure its impact is optimum to each child’s development and success.
When our parents choose our Nursery for their two-year-old, they do so knowing that their child will be nurtured, stretched, challenged and supported in all aspects of their development. It is widely recognised that children’s earliest experiences have a profound impact on their future successes and this makes choosing a nursery and pre-school a vital decision for parents to ‘get right’.
Some parents make a nursery choice and then an age five to 11 choice, followed by a further choice for 11 to 16, completed by a final choice at ages 16-18. Not only is that a lot of important choices to make, it creates many transition points for their children. With transition comes periods of closures and beginnings, which are not only emotionally challenging, high in risk (as the new destination might not be the right fit) but also insert periods of time in a child’s education where academic learning is superseded by other social and emotional priorities. Our parents can make the right, one-off school choice for their children, enabling a smooth, sharply focused educational journey for 16 years.
There is a valid challenge to the all-through system based on the importance and value of children learning how to successfully navigate periods of transition as an important life skill. Fortunately for Northampton High girls, they benefit from experiencing a transition from Reception to Year 1, Year 6 to Year 7 and Year 11 to Year 12, but these are more subtle and supported as end-to-end experiences within familiar contexts which eliminates the risk to the child of it not being successful. They experience the periods of change transitions offer but with a unique subtlety that enables them to quickly and seamlessly move from one phase to the next with minimal shift in focus and marginal impact on them emotionally. The key at the centre of our successful transitions for our girls is consistency – our common thread running from our offer in Nursery all the way through to our Sixth Form.
The girls are supported by this consistency by feeling secure with the familiarity it provides them. On a practical level, our girls become familiar with the physical surroundings of the school site from a young age so transitioning to the next phase elicits no commonly felt fear of getting lost. We may remember ourselves the thinking space this anxiety required in our minds when transitioning from junior to senior phase of our own education journey. As our girls benefit from the excellent facilities across our school site from such a young age, they are familiar and comfortable navigating the space with a confidence and independence.
Our Nursery and Pre-School are housed in purpose-built spaces that provide large, bright, airy learning environments for the children to explore, nestled within an expansive school site equipped with excellent facilities. A perfect balance of space specifically dedicated to early years children with access to tailored specialist learning spaces and resources to enhance and enrichen their learning experience.
Examples of this are:
- an excellently appointed science lab and a dedicated art and design technology studio for our Junior School children
- weekly swimming lessons from Reception in our wonderful Olympic-size swimming pool in our Sports Centre
- from two years old children take part in ballet lessons with a specialist teacher and have access to tailored studios in which to master these skills
- learning within our well-equipped forest school area on our school grounds is part of our learning offer from two years old
There are many mutual benefits to working with children of different ages and through our children’s potential 16 years with us they can enjoy many such opportunities with girls from across the school: assemblies led by children, buddy systems, cross-phase extra-curricular clubs, pupil leadership roles and sharing the building space. Our children benefit hugely from seeing role models in every year group ahead of them, inspiring them for their own futures.
Every child has one educational journey. One chance at their journey having a positive impact on their future. We see the benefits that choosing one school for that journey from two to 18 years old has. We know Northampton High’s unique, enhanced offer as the all-through choice for girls is the one and only choice parents should make for the benefits of their daughters.
One girl. One educational journey. One school – Northampton High School.
For more information, contact Northampton High School on 01604 765765 or email Amanda Wilmot, Director of Marketing & Admissions at a.wilmot@nhs.gdst.net.
