The Nest: An Exceptional Learning Space

We didn't stop at the indoor environment. Parents select our bilingual nursery for many reasons, one being our delivery of a blended British and Chinese curriculum. The British curriculum values the importance of outdoor learning to engage children with the natural environment, to become citizens of the world who are aware of their own impact on the world around them. It is to enable us to deliver the British curriculum, which is based on years of international research, that we have developed all our outdoor learning environments too.

There has been an addition to the main outdoor area at the front of the Nest. This gives children an improved learning space and new challenges. This area is for pre-nursery and nursery children. At the rear of the Nest, we have a wonderful upgraded outdoor learning area for nursery and pre-nursery. We can plan and deliver all areas of the curriculum in these areas.

For reception and year one we needed to create a new space that would allow us to deliver our exciting and challenging curriculum. We now have an incredible dedicated outdoor learning area for these year groups. This enables us to develop the physical and mental aspects of the British curriculum in a bespoke outdoor classroom. Access to this area is shared equally across the two year groups and the teams have already planned some wonderful learning opportunities for the children that cannot be delivered in an indoor classroom environment.

In the school, there is a new Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) room, which is a dedicated space for the Nest children to access specialist resources to bring STEAM to life. We are offering our children a 21st-century curriculum to prepare them for the world they will live and work in. To do this we have developed our learning environment inside and outside to provide the finest teaching and learning for the children.

It has taken a lot of hard work from so many teams across the College to make this vision a reality. As a leader, it is important to have a vision, however that vision is only of value when the team you work with believe in it. Working together the Wellington College team and particularly the Nest team have planned and created a learning space that equals and, in most cases, exceeds the provision available in the United Kingdom.