Our new Pre- Nursery facility will incorporate the Inspired Early Years Framework, which we will be offering  from September. This approach to Early Years education aims to promote deep learning, with the development of collaborative, communicative and critical thinking skills, from the child’s first days in the school, through a combination of teacher-led learning and recognizing the shared interests and curiosities of the children in the classroom. Hence children will have a certain amount of choice and input into topics studied and activities in the classroom, an approach known as “responsive teaching”. The object of encouraging the children’s agency in this way is to help them grow through the school developing in responsibility and capability because of the choices they learn to make about their own education. It’s a collaborative, communicative approach to education which will complement and enhance the steps we have taken in this direction in the last few years.

We will be offering this approach to Early Years in a purpose-built classroom facility, specifically designed for  the type of teaching and learning that we will be offering, staffed by Kensington teachers and assistants experienced and prepared to offer this model of education, and supported by the expertise of an international community of Inspired teachers with whom we communicate online on a weekly basis.

Every new development in Kensington School, of course, will be built on the bedrock of 53 years of experience of British education in Madrid, with immersion in English-language activities backed up by our commitment to developing the children’s different languages in partnership.

All this activity scarcely gives me time to thank all our families for your contribution to making Book Day such an enjoyable affair last April 23rd., by ensuring children across the school were able to dress up as characters from their different books for the day. I think everyone had a great time. Seeing the children sitting out on the playground for the Big Read, even socially distanced and in bubble groups, felt like one more step closer to our destination; and the different activities on the day were a timely reminder that, for an education to be serious, we have to have a lot of fun.