BADMINTON SCHOOL’S RECEPTION CLASS: A PARENT’S PERSPECTIVE

Those first steps into education are so important in a child’s life. The Reception year at Badminton School in Westbury Park, Bristol, offers girls an excellent start to their school journey with a well-rounded education and a warm, nurturing environment.

There are very small class sizes, which ensure girls receive individual, focussed attention, and the girls enjoy interesting, inspiring lessons, plus fun activities such as Forest School and twice-weekly swiming lessons.

The school pets, Dave, the dog, and Barnabus, the rabbit, also make regular appearences in lessons and assemblies!

It’s always helpful to learn about another parent’s experiences of a school. Here’s some thoughts from a dad to a little girl who is in Reception at Badminton.

What activities does your daughter do in reception on a typical day?

School starts at 8.30am and the junior school have their own specialist car park for drop off, which makes the drop off seamless and gives you a good start to the day. Sometimes we use the breakfast club, which has a drop off time of 7.30am.

On a Monday and Wednesday my daughter has swimming lessons at the school’s on site pool and on Tuesday’s she has ballet lessons with a specialist dance and ballet teacher who comes onsite.

Lessons during the day are typically: Literacy/phonics, mathematics, Personal, Social and emotional development, and communication and Language, amongst others. My daughter tells us all about it at dinner time. On Fridays, the girls have an activities afternoon where they go to an outdoor onsite Forest school and toast marshmallows amongst lots of other things.

During break times, my daughter goes out to the school ‘Rough Patch,’ an onsite outdoor adventure playground where she explores and plays to her hearts content. She loves it!

On a Friday afternoon we get an illustrated newsletter to see who ‘Star of the week’ was, what the girls have been up to this week and what’s coming up next week. This really helps with planning your own week.

What are the teachers like?

The teachers are great! The reception teacher, Mrs Jones, is fantastic! A real early year’s enthusiast who puts her heart and soul into the job. Mrs Jones is a highly experienced Reception teacher. Mrs Jones tailors the school exactly to suit your daughter’s needs. She is very attentive to the needs of each girl and provides regular formal and informal feedback to us. I look forward to dropping my daughter off in the morning as I know there isn’t a better place for her.

What do you feel a reception class should ideally offer a child and how far do you feel Badminton School meets your expectations?

The reception class is the first stepping stone into the formal education system. It should be a comfortable, warm and inviting atmosphere for the girls. Somewhere where the girls look forward to going to each day and somewhere where my daughter can learn at her pace. The Badminton reception class demonstrates this and so much more. My daughter can’t wait to go to school each day and she loves to stay on at late stay to 5.45pm, when we pick her up. She now doesn’t like school holidays as all she wants to do is go to school.

On the academic side, my daughter is given a new book to read each day and they practice phonics and numbers each day. Each child has academic goals set at the beginning of the year which is shared with the parents and with the teacher you work towards these common goals. It’s a very clear and tested system.

At the end of the reception year as I have an elder daughter in year 5, the switch to year 1 is seamless, as they already interact with other lower years pupils and their teachers.

I would say Badminton Reception exceeds expectations and offers what I would expect from a Junior school reception year and I can especially and appreciate this now more so being an experienced parent.

What do you think Badminton reception class offers over reception classes at other schools?

I can’t speak for other schools as I have two daughters in Badminton Junior school, however, we’re very happy with the Reception class at Badminton. The reception class offers a warming, loving purposeful environment, where our youngest daughter thrives and loves to be. The teaching staff have a real passion for teaching.

I would say the wrap around and pastural care is unrivalled. I don’t worry about my daughter from 8.30am to 5.45pm everyday, which allows me to focus on my work. The passion of the staff for their job and the girls, is fantastic and the focused and tailored individual learning is high quality. Also, the specialist teachers for music, PE, performing arts and ICT break up the routine and give me daughter specialist teaching from a very early age.

What are your daughter’s favourite things about her reception class at Badminton?

There are so many things. She has a great bunch of friends, she loves the home cooked school meals, she loves the school Rabbit ‘Barnabas’ but above all she really loves spending time with the teachers. We wouldn’t change it for the world. The best girls’ school in Bristol!