Moulsford Pre-Prep and Pre-School

The supremely knowledgeable and engaging head of pre-prep, Sabrina McMann, is at the helm here so it’s fair to say that this is no ordinary school. With a purpose-built and environmentally sympathetic barn conversion-esque look – and the most staggering eco-credentials, the newly opened fully co-ed Moulsford pre-prep and pre-school is simply stunning.

Both easy to find and reach, Moulsford sits in prime commuter-belt territory on a 36-acre site beside the River Thames between Didcot and Henley-on-Thames. The new standalone pre-prep and pre-school (just across the road from Moulsford Prep) is a triumph, built with the best possible learning environment in mind while also blending sympathetically into its setting and nailing some serious eco-credentials to its mast. The whole site is a significant achievement and something of which Moulsford’s head, Ben Beardmore-Gray, is rightly proud.

Daily parental deliveries are supplemented by a generous fleet of minibuses that bring pupils in from Henley-on-Thames, Wallingford, Nettlebed and more, and good rail links make commuting a breeze for parents (from nearby Cholsey station it’s an hour to London on the fast train).

Head of pre-prep Mrs McMann joined in March 2020 and now presides over the geographically separate and now fully co-ed pre-prep and pre-school at Moulsford. 

There was evidently local demand for the move to co-ed but it’s clear that learning for these youngsters isn’t about gender anyway. Ms McMann agrees that ‘children of such a young age don’t tend to define their learning or play by gender. Laying the foundations of learning and playing together should help children to be tolerant and respectful of each other while building experience in the skills of collaboration, cooperation and compromise.’ But be clear that although the pre-prep has its own insanely snazzy site and is soon to be co-ed, it still remains very firmly part of the Moulsford fold.

There are no formal admission criteria; both boys and girls from the age of three are welcomed into the light and spacious Bobcats class, while entrance to Reception is first come, first served. Refreshingly, the aim of admissions at the whole of Moulsford is to make it ‘as friendly and straightforward as possible’. It’s a popular school but entry into most year groups is still realistic.

This whole building has been designed specifically with learning in mind and so it’s no surprise to find that work, play and wellbeing are baked right in. The classrooms are all arranged around a central playground and have ‘teacher walls’ with storage and interactive whiteboards and more light and space than you could shake a stick at. The central courtyard itself is chock-a-block with things to occupy little minds and bodies, including trike tracks, balancing beams, adventure play areas and masses of space. Pre-school children wear a Moulsford polo shirt and fleece so they feel very much part of the gang here. With the added bonus of the prep facilities just a hop over the road, it really is heaven for these fortunate youngsters – and for parents too, with wraparound care until 5.30pm.

The pre-school is a term-time only setting, and children are expected to attend a minimum of four half days a week, building to a more full-time pattern in the term prior to Reception. Moulsford follows the EYFS curriculum, but forest school is also par for the course from the outset, with Playball, yoga and music topping up the opportunities for new experiences.

There have long since been two classes from Year 2, but increased space has now allowed for a second form in both Reception (Wildcats and Tigers) and Year 1 (Pumas and Panthers). The staff across early years use the online learning journal Tapestry to record milestones and activities and to share with parents, but the children also have planners which go back and forth from school to home.

For the youngest learners, the structure for most days will be phonics, English and maths in the morning (when little ones are most able to focus) and work is done both with old-school pen and paper as well as lots of forward-leaning interactive techniques which appeal particularly to kinaesthetic and auditory learners. Art, judo, drama, French and Spanish, music, PE and forest school are all taught by specialist teachers in the pre-prep. By Year 2, pupils have regular timetabled subject lessons and begin to move – by minibus - to the main school site for a few of their lessons (such as ICT and art) so they get used to the layout of the prep school, smoothing the transition for those who will be going across the road for Year 3.

The whole curriculum is designed around keeping these scamps engaged and stimulating enquiring minds is the order of the day here. We were lucky enough to have lunch with a particularly inquisitive bunch of truly wonderful youngsters who had no trouble making conversation with a grown-up – polite questions to us were interspersed with an eclectic plethora of interesting facts about all sorts, including why a diplodocus has such a long neck…

The great outdoors is big at Moulsford whether that’s out on the riverfront (on which the prep school sits) or maximising the use of the surrounding space and woodland for forest school which starts in the pre-school and continues right through until Year 2. 

All pupils in Years 1 and 2 will do judo and they follow a sports programme called Playball. Moulsford is sports-mad, but while sport may be booming, the school’s attitude to it is even more laudable. In a mostly boys’ environment (which will obviously  change come September 2023), you’d be forgiven for thinking that competition would be inevitable, but the head of sport says that the focus is on performance, participation and a sense of teamwork – and boys in any year group can receive a ‘Lionheart’ award that rewards effort, initiative and team spirit or recognises progress. 

Music is part of the curriculum throughout the school with the head of music regularly popping over to the pre-prep to teach and inspire even the youngest. It certainly works, as by Year 3, there’s an impressive variety of individual lessons going on – 75 per cent of the prep school learn at least one instrument.

Drama in the pre-prep centres around the Christmas nativity and, again, it’s all designed to be a collaborative confidence booster with children only asked to take on what they are comfortable with.

After-school clubs focus on grubby-kneed fun such as fishing, bicycle-racing, teepee-building and marshmallow-roasting. 

Good manners, courtesy and discipline are instilled in the children from the outset. Mr B-G is big on developing ‘good habits’ in all pupils, and every child we met was mind-bogglingly polite. There really is a feeling that kindness is prized beyond anything else. Several members of staff told us that the most important part of the education here, from pre-school upwards, is the pastoral care and that nurturing children in a compassionate familial community is very much the Moulsford raison d’être. And it’s evidently a view shared beyond the school gates – in 2022, Moulsford received the Wellbeing Award for Schools, developed in partnership with the National Children's Bureau, and it's brilliant recognition of the school's tangible commitment to pastoral care and wellbeing.

Pre-prep has an assembly on Monday and a celebration assembly on Friday where Star of the Week and Playball certificates are given out. But bringing in the local community from outside the school is also important and in the week of our visit, pupils were treated to a visit from both the police and the fire brigade as part of their learning about ‘important people’.

A rare find that seeks to realise every child’s potential – a rural idyll that values soft skills and teaches children to be ‘decent human beings’. The school’s deputy head pastoral, casually chatting over coffee, summed up so much of what we saw in spades at Moulsford: ‘We just want them to be happy, whatever that looks like for them.’ Enough said.