The Early Years Group is a preparation stage for 3-6s and is ran separately to the main part-time sessions, the sessions last an hour and fifteen minutes when the student is 6 years old they are invited to spend an extra half hour with the main part-time sessions group. Our Early Years Group is ran by the same qualified teachers that run the part-time sessions they can learn the basic skills for performing arts which will give them in every day skills and benefit them in their school life.

At Early Years we aim to promote confidence and build performing arts abilities at the early ages. We will ensure that vocally, dramatically and physically the children will have fun learning about the performing arts. We will begin by working through a proven early years programme in teaching children, sounds, shapes and colours related to the voice and being able to express them within drama. This is an important resource for any young child and will help to build relationships with other children in role play.

Whilst vocally we are aware that we have to be extremely careful with such young voices we can work on appropriate word learning patterns and early notation, this has been developed by the same music specialist who teaches the 6-18's in our Main School

Within the hour and fifteen minutes the children at Early Years will begin to develop their skills which will also help with reading, and understanding communication with others. The children will be involved in lots of musical plays, and performances as they grow in confidence and knowledge. It is hoped that from this we can build towards them joining our main school at the age of 6 yrs. In the term preceding their sixth birthday we will establish links with the older children by lengthening the time they are with us to overlap into the main school timetable.

Any child who has been with us at Early Years and wishes to enter our main school will still have to sit a small audition to gain entry but DON'T WORRY it's just to assess what level exams you'll be working towards.

General Information

Our Early Years Music, Drama and Dance Class for 3-6 year old children, has been developed with a qualified nursery teacher & dance specialist to provide early performing arts skills which are part of a fun, educational class. Early Years runs alongside the school term and we ensure each term is a minimum of eleven weeks. Sessions last 1 Hour 15 Minutes and this allows the children to have five minute breaks every 20 minutes as our teachers know this allows better concentration in shorter spans and enables them to learn more. The session can then be split into three 20 minute sections which change between music, drama, dance, and movement lessons. We aim to cover a wide range of performing arts skills including building self confidence through interactive games and learning social and drama skills that can be used in everyday life. We limit our class sizes to a maximum of 8 children per teacher. 

Session Structure

A typical session can be broken down into:

About The Teachers

All of our teachers are enhanced CRB checked (now referred to as DBS checked), as with all our teachers our Early Years Specialist is a dedicated member of our team  as we believe it is important to have continuity at such an early age.  

What We Work Towards

Our curriculum has been specifically designed for the Pre School and Year One Age Groups. Children will have the opportunity of developing all skills. In music and singing we will work on music games and action songs and matched movements in music. In drama we would look and develop role play, improvisation skills and movement games which will help develop creative expression. Early Years Children will also be involved with performances including our end of term performances and Winter Pantomime.  

NOTE: Early Years members who are approaching their 6th birthday will be invited to spend some time with the senior students as an introduction to moving up after their 6th birthday.

EARLY YEARS DOES NOT REQUIRE AN AUDITION 

WE ALLOW 3 YEAR OLDS TO JOIN PROVIDING THEY ARE TOILET TRAINED. PLACES ARE STRICTLY LIMITED.

So When, Where and How Much?

Current Class Times and Locations are available on our Early Years Class Times Page.

You can find our current Early Years Fees Online on our Early Years Fees Page.