At Prospect House, individualised learning means understanding where each child is now, adapting the challenge and support they receive accordingly, and reviewing their progress regularly as they grow. Rather than assuming every pupil learns in the same way or at the same pace, we build a picture of each child’s strengths and areas for development and use it to shape their day-to-day teaching. This principle runs through our whole curriculum, from core academic subjects to art, sport and music, and is one reason families choose Prospect House as a prep school with personalised learning at its heart.
As your child enters our nursery, we begin with a Foundation Baseline assessment. This initial evaluation helps us understand where your child stands in various developmental areas. It helps us identify strengths and areas for growth, so we can tailor activities that engage and challenge them from day one.
To keep you connected, we use Tapestry, an online platform that allows parents to follow their child’s daily activities and learning experiences. Through photos, observations, and notes, you’ll be able to see how your child interacts with their peers and engages with the curriculum. This transparency helps foster a strong partnership between home and school, enabling you to support your child’s learning journey.
Play-based learning in the Early Years supports each child’s individual learning style and pace. Through carefully planned activities, your child explores learning through play in ways tailored to their interests and strengths. Whether role-playing, retelling stories or creating with materials, these experiences help children experiment with language, letters and words.
This creates space for your child to develop language, literacy and communication skills naturally, fostering curiosity for reading and writing. By following your child’s lead, play-based learning nurtures early literacy in a way that feels individualised and natural, building confidence and allowing children to progress at their own pace as early readers and writers.
We recognise that every child’s learning journey is unique, and that children develop at different times as they move through the school. Through careful observation, termly assessment and individualised tracking of your child’s progress, we can quickly identify where extra support might help.
Our dedicated Head of Learning Support for the younger years runs 1:1 or small-group sessions for children who might benefit from a little extra support in areas such as maths or reading, helping build the confidence that comes with a secure foundation. Confidence and support go hand in hand, which is why this approach connects closely with our wider wellbeing and pastoral care.
As your child progresses to Year 3, they benefit from working in small, carefully chosen tutor groups for maths and English with a specialist teacher. This structure means teaching is tailored to your child’s specific learning profile: children are grouped based on their current skills and understanding, so that they receive targeted support and challenge.
All year-group teachers take part in regular reviews of each child’s progress, evaluating any changing needs as your child develops. This approach builds confidence and competence and helps every child to thrive.
Because literacy underpins all learning, our targeted reading provision in Years 3 and 4 focuses on building reading skills and fostering a genuine love of reading, so that every child becomes a confident and fluent reader. Access to high-quality texts underpins our daily teaching, using the Write Stuff approach, which combines high-quality vocabulary and prose with an understanding of cognitive load, so children’s ideas are supported and structured while still being free to develop.
For our more able students, we offer a Gifted and Talented pathway in art, sport, and music from Year 3 onwards. Meeting once a week, these sessions provide opportunities for deeper exploration and enrichment in these areas, with dedicated scholarship groups to further extend identified pupils from Year 5.
Alongside theory, vocal and other instrumental sessions, musically gifted children are typically chosen to play chamber music on a regular basis, the musical benefits always proving significant. Members of a recent Year 6 brass trio, for example, were all awarded music scholarships to secondary schools.
Our sport scholarship students follow a pathway that enhances over and above what they receive in class. These sessions mirror the secondary school scholarship day events. The children are also selected for tournaments giving them the opportunity to compete against other talented children.
Our selected artists’ pathway enables children to develop their sketchbook and research work through the implementation of a ‘coursework’ style approach. Carefully selected themes enable our children to take their art in a direction of their choosing, culminating in our end of term art exhibition showcase; here, pupils display and discuss their idea development, process and work to a wider audience.
Children who are identified as particularly able in maths and English are also selected and encouraged to participate in extension challenges and activities both internally and in the wider community. Maths challenges attended over recent years have included those organised by King’s College Wimbledon, Emanuel School and Epsom College. Within English, children are encouraged to take part in opportunities, such as the Poetry Together programme, our house writing competition and the Dukes Spelling Bee.
At Prospect House, individualised learning is not just a concept; it is a practice we apply at every stage of your child’s education, from the earliest assessments in Nursery to bespoke intervention and extension in Key Stage 2. Explore our wider curriculum, find out about wellbeing and pastoral care, or contact Admissions to see how our approach could work for your child.
As partners in your child’s education, your involvement is invaluable. To this end, we offer an ‘open door’ policy where parents are actively encouraged to come to meet with the head or their child’s teachers. From the start of their school journey, you can engage with Tapestry to celebrate your child’s achievements, discuss your day-to-day experiences and communicate with teachers about your child’s progress and any concerns you might have.
When it comes to the transition on to the next stage of your child’s education, we work together with parents to support, inform and guide you to make the best choice for your child’s next school placement. By working together, we can ensure that your child’s individualised learning journey is both successful and fulfilling.
At Prospect House, individualised learning means adapting support and challenge to each child’s current learning needs rather than using a single approach for everyone. This is shown through early assessment, careful tracking, small-group teaching, targeted intervention, pupil conferences and extension opportunities across different stages of the school.
The terms are closely related, and parents may use them interchangeably. Our established term is ‘individualised learning’. In practice, personalised teaching means adjusting support, challenge, grouping and targets according to a pupil’s current skills and development.
We use several methods across different ages. In Nursery, a Foundation Baseline helps staff understand developmental strengths and areas for growth. As children progress, teachers use observation, termly assessment, individualised tracking, gap analysis and regular review to identify where additional support or challenge may be useful.
Yes. Younger pupils may receive 1:1 or small-group sessions in areas such as maths or reading. We also run a daily Intervention Time slot in which teachers work either individually with a child or with a targeted group of two to four pupils, depending on identified need.
From Year 3, pupils work in carefully chosen tutor groups for maths and English with specialist teachers. Groups are based on current skills and understanding, allowing teaching to provide targeted support and challenge. Teachers regularly review each child’s progress and changing needs.
Personalisation also includes extension. We offer Gifted and Talented pathways in art, sport and music from Year 3, scholarship groups from Year 5, and additional challenge opportunities for pupils identified as particularly able in maths and English.
We see parents as partners in their child’s education. Our approach includes an open-door policy, Tapestry in the early years, communication with teachers about progress and concerns, and collaboration when families are considering the next stage of their child’s education.
This page explains how teaching is adapted around each child, while the Curriculum page sets out what pupils learn across subjects and year groups. Together, they show both the breadth of the curriculum and the ways support and challenge are tailored within it.
Explore the wider Prep School and Curriculum pages, read about Wellbeing & Pastoral Care, or contact Admissions to discuss our approach. A visit is also a good opportunity to ask how personalised support and challenge work in practice for different age groups.
