Nightingale Cottage
Our Day
We are open Mondays, 10 am - 2 pm and cater for 8-13 year olds. From September 2025, we will be open Mondays and Tuesdays, with the expectation that children attend both days. We hope to expand the age ranges we can cater for soon. Longer-term, our offer will be three days a week.
We try not to share a 'timetable' of what our day looks like - flexibility is at the heart of all that we do, and we are constantly responding to how the children are feeling and what inspires them on the day.
However, we generally teach English, maths and reading first and topic in the afternoons. Break and lunchtimes are fluid : sometimes we eat as we work, sometimes we pause learning to get a burst of fresh air or to play in a rainstorm! Wanders in the woods, gardening in the allotments and board games give us the 'slow time' we all need.
Our high staff : pupil ratios means children always get the support they deserve.
Our Subjects:
Maths
We focus largely on the 'number' objectives from the National Curriculum: these skills form the foundation for nearly all other mathematical concepts. Countries like China, renowned for pupils' high performance in mathematics, emphasise number fluency, ensuring students master these fundamentals before progressing to more advanced topics.
Where necessary, we split the group into two, to align with Lower and Upper Key Stage Two objectives.
English
Where possible, we give our writing a real-world purpose.
For example:
- writing for our local newspaper
- coming up with the text for social media posts / marketing copy for our enterprise projects
- entering children into competitions (we currently have four published writers!)
- proofreading an author's work
- finding opportunities to display our writing in our local community
Our main aim for reading is to instil a love of literature. We schedule in 'book club style' reading lessons in our cosy library, with targeted questioning, discussion and vocabulary exploration. When the weather allows, we pick up our camping chairs and head into the woods with our books!
Topic
Our children choose what they would like to learn about in topic (e.g. the human body). These lessons are sometimes linked to a celebration, for example World Tree Day.
We schedule in regular visits from local professionals/ specialist teachers. So far, we have worked with a:
- photographer
- artist
- bee keeper
- financial consultant
- business consultant
- gardener
- eco-artist
- doctor
- audio artist/musician
- prosthetic makeup artist
