Families from many different cultures have sought us out and their children have formed close friendships in our warm and supportive setting. We celebrate each child’s uniqueness and have found that the children greatly enjoy learning each other’s languages and building early friendships within our community. We have welcomed children from many different countries around the world: Norway, Hungary, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, India, Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, China and Japan, Africa, the Carribbean, Poland, Australia and America…

We often encourage new parents from other cultures to share their child's favourite song in their own language, which we will try to learn and sing with them. Our staff also speak several different languages and we all try to learn some key words and phrases in each child's home language if we do not speak it ourselves.

 These twins (below) wouldn't play with anyone but each other when they first arrived, but soon began to show us what amazing, imaginative little people they were. Before long, everyone wanted to be their friends! They are now mature, accomplished young girls who write books and play violin and cello in their school orchestra.

THE Hunsdon House APPROACH

Our traditional kindergarten was the first custom-built nursery in England in the 1920's. The Nursery is set in a house that provides a warm, homely atmosphere, with windows onto a mature garden with woodland. We follow a seasonal curriculum based on the philosophies of Freidrich Froebel, Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner and so the children are grounded in a deep appreciation for the natural world all around them.

Our primary emphasis is to provide an exciting, happy learing environment which encourages positive self-esteem and focuses on the development of the whole child. We aim to help the children to build a strong character, grow spiritally, encourage their ability to concentrate and give ample opportunities to express themselves creatively, verbally or any other way. Children are encouraged to sing, make music and dance.

Our international Nursery provides opportunities for being with children from different cultures in a warm and supportive multilingual setting conducive to all learning, helping children overcome any social, cultural or language barriers to building early friendships within our community.

“Our aim is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorise, but to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core.” Maria Montessori

We encourage the children to independently explore the different materials on offer each day, to let them develop their own learning style. Most materials are open-ended, to grow imagination and creative thinking, or self-correcting, enabling children to find out by themselves how things fit together.

Our nursery provides a peaceful, unhurried learning environment which develops self-confidence, social skills and caring for others. We encourage children to grow in harmony with nature and become kind, resourceful and responsible individuals.

Before and after the Hunsdon House experience.........

Our greatest pleasure is to see each shy new little child (often arriving from overseas) blossom into a confident, outgoing classmate over the course of their 2 or 3 years with us, becoming fluent in English, forming close and lasting relationships with other children and all ready for school!

Many of our former pupils have fond and vivid memories of their time with us and love to revisit Hunsdon House and help nurture the little ones... they are always welcome!

The dark-haired boy below (aged 3, left, and aged 9, right) returned after 6 years to remember his nursery days and read the little boys a story, smiling as they eagerly clustered around him! He was covered in hugs by the end of the afternoon.

These two shy, quiet little girls (below) found each other and developed an inseparable friendship which is still going strong today, now they are 18!