The Heart of Learning: Our Infant School Curriculum
At St Margaret's Hampstead, our infant curriculum for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 is carefully crafted to provide a rich, engaging and bespoke education with one guiding principle: placing the girl at the heart of every thought and action.
Our approach is a powerful synergy of exceptional pastoral care, the proven benefits of very small class sizes and an ambitious cross-curricular programme that boosts curiosity, confidence and a lifelong love of learning.
Every girl stands out at St Margaret’s hampstead
The power of personalised attention & small class sizes
With a maximum class size of 14 pupils, our Infant classrooms are uniquely positioned to offer truly individualised attention. This small scale isn’t simply a feature, it’s a philosophy. It enables our teachers to stretch, challenge and support each girl with precision and care, ensuring no child is ever overlooked.
This high teacher-to-pupil ratio allows for personalised learning experiences, builds strong pupil-teacher relationships and nurtures self-esteem. It gives each girl the confidence to explore new areas of learning, take intellectual risks and develop her unique strengths to a far greater depth than might normally be possible.
Our nurturing community
We believe that a child who is happy and feels truly valued is perfectly positioned for academic and personal success. At St Margaret’s Hampstead, you’ll discover a genuine family feel – a warmth that cannot be scripted or policy-driven but is lived and felt every day.
As a small school, we are able to build strong, meaningful relationships with every child. Our staff are deeply attentive and consistently listen to, support and champion each pupil. This is reflected in our most recent ISI inspection report, which praised our pupils for being "highly self-disciplined" with "excellent standards of behaviour and respect". Pupils reported highly effective pastoral care systems that help resolve issues with empathy and care.
This deeply rooted sense of security gives our girls the confidence to take risks, embrace challenges and as we say often, "just have a go", knowing they will be supported every step of the way.
An ambitious & inspiring curriculum
Literacy
We use a structured, systematic synthetic phonics programme with daily sessions in Reception and Year 1, laying the foundation for fluent reading and writing. Reading is further supported through the VIPERS framework to build comprehension skills and support a love of literature.
Numeracy
Daily maths lessons from Reception focus on deep conceptual understanding, problem-solving and reasoning. We use the White Rose maths scheme and NRich resources to offer a robust, challenging and engaging learning journey.
Our bespoke infant curriculum offers comprehensive coverage of the national curriculum and the early years foundation stage, but also goes far beyond to excite, inspire and empower our pupils. Carefully planned to ensure progression across each year group, our curriculum is uniquely designed for St Margaret’s Hampstead and tailored to the needs and interests of our girls.
We use half-termly themes and ‘big “I wonder…” questions’ to make learning relevant and interconnected across subjects. This thematic, cross-curricular approach helps girls make sense of the world around them, develop critical thinking skills and find joy in learning.
Outdoor learning & forest school
Learning beyond the classroom
Educational trips and real-world experiences are embedded into our curriculum to enhance classroom learning. For example, Year 1 classes visit the Science Museum’s Flight Exhibition as part of their "Explorers" topic, bringing their learning to life in exciting and memorable ways. These thoughtfully chosen visits broaden horizons, deepen understanding and help children make meaningful connections between subjects and the wider world.
The Infants’ Enrichment Programme
Our bespoke Infants’ Enrichment Programme provides a stimulating and joyful end to the school day. Designed to be both fun and challenging, the programme enriches our academic offering by allowing girls to explore their creative, physical and personal interests.
Activities include storytelling, creative arts, Lego challenges, ballet and gentle yoga. Each session is an opportunity to develop fine motor skills, social confidence and self-expression, reinforcing the belief that learning happens everywhere.
House System: our Family Trees
Every girl belongs to one of our three school houses – Nightingale, Curie and De Maurier – each named after an inspirational woman who reflects our values of courage, curiosity and compassion. Our Family Trees house system encourages collaboration and camaraderie across year groups.
Girls earn house points for effort, kindness and achievement, with a house trophy awarded at our annual Prize Giving. House teams also come together for events such as Sports Day, helping to develop teamwork, resilience and school spirit.
At St Margaret’s Hampstead, our infant curriculum is more than just academic learning
It is a thoughtful, nurturing and empowering journey that ensures each girl grows in confidence, develops a love of learning and begins to understand her own unique potential.