The key to successful learning in the Early Years is to teach children without them realising they are being taught.

Bassett House School first opened its doors in 1947 offering a holistic and child centred Montessori approach, which still continues today. The Montessori method of education develops children’s natural interests and allows them to make choices in their learning. It also helps to build leadership, coordination and concentration skills. 

At Bassett House, learning is seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of our pupils’ exciting day-to-day experiences. We want all children to develop a love for learning and to have fun and enjoy success in all aspects of their education.

Our recently refurbished Early Years building called Bassett Bear House is located at 73 St Helen’s Gardens, close to our main school site. Located across four floors, it comprises three bright and airy classrooms, a versatile interactive learning zone and an all-purpose performance studio. 

Children enjoy a wide variety of stimulating resources, which are mostly physical or visually engaging at this stage in their development. Our skilled Early Years staff provide children with appropriate and exciting play and learning experiences to play to their strengths and support them to develop new skills. 

Pupils are nurtured and encouraged, gaining independence and confidence during their time at Bassett Bear House. Individual care is given to all children and each child is encouraged to reach developmental goals at a pace that is right for them. It is important to remember that every child learns in a unique way and, therefore, we plan carefully to cater for all types of learners to stimulate their senses and support and optimise their learning styles.

Teaching takes place with individual children, in small focus groups, and as a whole class.

Children are given opportunities for indoor and outdoor activities every day and through play and structured learning, pupils develop a variety of skills and interests. Learning is seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of our pupils’ exciting day-to-day experiences. We want all children to develop a love for learning and to have fun and enjoy achievement and success in all aspects of their education. We strive to ensure that children feel happy in their environment and immediately feel part of our school community. 

We incorporate all seven areas of learning in the Department for Education’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and endeavour to allow our pupils to go beyond and reach their full potential.

Bassett House in the press...

Read School House magazine
Read Independent School Parent
  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development
    We endorse a Growth Mindset approach where pupils are confident to make decisions and are willing to always ‘have a go’. 
    From birth, children are constantly growing, adapting and learning from their environment. At Bassett Bear House, we support the children's personal, social and emotional development (PSED), encouraging them to build strong relationships with children and adults, develop self confidence, consider the needs of others and experience pride and success. We endorse a Growth Mindset approach where pupils are confident to make decisions and are willing to always ‘have a go’.  We encourage our AmBassettors to learn about the beauty of making mistakes as a vehicle for learning and growing.
  • Communication and Language
    Our teachers take every opportunity to foster dialogue and build vocabulary whilst establishing positive speaking and listening skills.
    We create a language rich environment where children are encouraged to express themselves and share their thoughts, ideas and feelings,  in a space where they understand that their contributions are always valued. Language development is supported by a number of activities such as storytelling and role play which stimulate communication skills and vocabulary development.  We help Bassett pupils to internalise and innovate well-known stories through a story-making approach.
  • Physical Development
    A wide range of activities and resources help to refine fine motor skills and physical development in our young learners.
    Children learn about the importance of keeping the body and mind active and healthy. We enjoy lots of physical learning opportunities, including weekly PE lessons, Forest School style exploration in our urban garden and visits to Kensington Memorial Park.  We ensure our pupils have opportunities to develop their physical dexterity in a fun way.  Favourites include our ‘dough discos’ and shape and letter writing in everything from glitter to chocolate spread.
  • Literacy
    A fundamental life skill, literacy is a key component of the teaching at Bassett Bear House.
    Reading and writing are one of the most essential milestones in the life of our young children. We develop young imaginations through active storytelling and role play, aiming to instil a love of reading in our children. When each child is ready, they begin exploring sounds through a systematic phonics teaching approach, as well as their corresponding letters in the alphabet, linking sounds to letters. They enjoy looking for things in our stimulating EYFS environment that they can connect to a sound (animals, toys, foods, objects etc). Once a child understands that words have beginning, medial and end sounds, they are shown the importance of “sounding out” words (d-o-g), and intuitively (with a little bit of help), they begin to read and write.
  • Maths
    Joining in with number songs and rhymes introduces our learners to mathematics in the Early Years.
     Children use concrete resources: touching, feeling and manipulating materials to strengthen their understanding of different ways of working with and learning about numbers. A range of kinesthetic, practical and fun activities rooted in a Montessori approach help to ensure children are familiar with concepts such as: colour, shape, pattern, sorting, matching, sequencing and counting - building a strong foundation from which they can continue to build as they move through the school. Our pupils are taught to confidently count forwards and backwards to twenty with a solid understanding of what each number looks like so that they can understand terms like more than, less than and groups of.  Our mastery approach ensures a strong mathematical foundation upon which to build.
  • Understanding the World
    Bassett pupils develop a keen interest and curiosity in the world around them.
    At Bassett, we nurture pupils in their play and exploration, challenging them to ask questions and find things out for themselves. Our urban garden and cross curricular topics lend themselves to this area of discovery. The children at Bassett House are competent users of technology and when appropriate, are introduced to laptops and iPads where they develop skills which they can use across all areas of learning. Pupils are also introduced to programming and algorithms, using tools such as Beebots for an early introduction to coding.
  • Expressive Arts and Design
    At Bassett Bear House, all of our pupils are given opportunities to harness their creativity.
    Through class assemblies and whole-school performances, children can show off their personalities and build confidence in speaking aloud and expressing themselves. In our interactive learning zone, children explore and create using crayons, chalks, paints and glue with a range of modelling items readily available to them, giving limitless possibilities for imagination. Specialist lessons in music and eurhythmics give the children the opportunity to express themselves through movement, dance and song. Eurythmics- a beautiful blend of music, movement, expression and rhythm is unique to Bassett Bear House and has been taught since the school opened its doors to just a handful of pupils in 1947.