Radnor House - Blue Sky School
Radnor House Prep School is a brand-new school for Twickenham with a creative, forward-thinking education at its heart.
Imagine being able to design a new prep school from scratch. A school where the blue skies viewed across the Thames from the terrace of its historic school building are reflected by the blue-sky thinking that informs the modern education inside.
This is Radnor House Prep School, a new prep school opening in the heart of Twickenham in September 2023 that will have innovation, creativity, and STEAM at its heart.
Book your slot for an open-day visit.
School details
Radnor Prep will inhabit a well-established space that is already a very popular school. Radnor House Twickenham (which currently takes pupils from Years 5-13) has become so successful it has outgrown its space and is moving to nearby Kneller Hall, to become Kneller Hall School, opening in September 2023. Both schools are part of Dukes Education, a dynamic education family with a strong vision for all its schools, nurseries, and colleges.
The beautiful surroundings
The building that Radnor House Prep will inherit is itself extraordinary. A Victorian Gothic pile right on the banks of the River Thames, it is named after the poet Alexander Pope who lived and worked here. Pope’s Villa, as it is known, has two ingredients that will make it an outstanding prep school: space and incredible facilities.
There will be some reshaping and refurbishing of the existing spaces to bring the school up to date for smaller children, but the really exciting redesign will be around the school’s brand-new STEAM facilities.
Pope’s Villa has masses of space which has given the school’s founding Head, Stephanie Piper, the opportunity to design truly 21st-century teaching and learning settings.
The three existing, well-equipped science laboratories, for example, are being remodelled into state-of-the-art STEAM spaces.
These labs will be used for science, coding, robotics and physical computing, plus Computer-Aided Design (CAD), art and technology. STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths and a true STEAM curriculum doesn’t draw a distinction between science and technology and art and creativity.
They are viewed as integrated subjects and students at Radnor House Prep will develop their skills and knowledge across all these fields, learning about the art of science and the science of art rather than the traditional, rather narrow view, that divides these subjects from each other.
Modern education plans
The way children will learn at the school will be forward-thinking, too.
Outdoor spaces will play a huge role, particularly in the Nursery and Reception – a fabulous new outdoor covered play area is being built, carefully designed to make learning engaging and exciting.
And learning will be self-directed rather than taught, particularly in these crucial Early Years. This means each child will be encouraged to learn at their own pace, to explore their surroundings, allowing the children to get a sense of independence and confidence much faster than in a more traditional setting.
A place for little ones to thrive
From Year 1, children will be taught by a class teacher and TA, and still with lots of access to the school’s outdoor spaces. Even in the Early Years, there will be specialist teachers in French, Music, PE and Drama – the school has a fully equipped theatre on site.
From Year 3 onwards, subject specialists will teach all lessons and children will move to different rooms – as they would in a senior setting – making full use of the purpose-designed spaces.
Bringing an end to traditional teaching
Other spaces will include large music and drama spaces for fuelling creativity, plus a modern ‘breakout’ space where children can enjoy one-to-one teaching, group work and other ways of taking learning beyond traditional classroom confines.
And each space will be furnished with the very latest technology – a huge advantage of opening a new school is that it can be ahead of the game rather than having to play catch up and renew ageing technology.
Radnor House Prep will inherit the amazing sports facilities and outdoor spaces of the current school but for the many prospective parents visiting this year, it is this combination of state-of-the-art facilities with a truly forward-thinking creative curriculum that is exciting them.
They can see that Radnor House Prep will be able to offer their child a truly 21st-century education.
Radnor House Prep School are hosting an Open Evening on 24th November 2022 and an Open Morning on 3rd December 2022. Book a slot via Eventbrite. To find out more or enquire about a place, please visit prep.radnor-twickenham.org.
