Bankfield is situated in a lovely Edwardian villa in the Duchy area of Harrogate. The splendid main buildings of Harrogate Ladies’ College are its immediate neighbours and the magnificent early twentieth century St Wilfrid’s church lies immediately to its rear.
Bankfield has a purposely homely feel, to ease the transition for very young children from the familiarity of their home surroundings to those of the start of school. The two year groups each has its own set of rooms, with each room set out to encourage particular types of play and learning through well planned areas for different types of educational activity – reading, mathematical, art and so on.
There are facilities for children to enjoy their snacks at snack time and their lunches on site.
The play area is particularly impressive, with a wide variety of educational equipment specifically designed to encourage children in creative and developmental activities. There are also beautiful garden areas in our immediate vicinity, so that our children can enjoy the delights of observing the natural world at very close hand.
As part of HLC, we have access to its splendid facilities as and when it is appropriate. Our young children love the sense of seeing into the world of the “grown up” children that their trips to the Main Site bring. They also prepare them gradually for the next transition they will have to make in their education, when they move on to Highfield, our prep department, which is adjacent to the senior school buildings.
Being so close to the town centre also enables us to mount occasional “expeditions” there with relative ease, to enhance further the learning opportunities of our children.
Besides its pupils, the single most important resource of any school is its staff. Bankfield has 8 early years’ practitioners. They are all well qualified and have considerable experience. More importantly still, they love working with very young children and are dedicated to their charges and know them very well indeed. We operated a “key person” system long before it became a requirement under the EYFS provisions, so our culture of care and nurture is very well established. The staff are brilliantly led by the Head and her Deputy, Mrs Alison Collings and Mrs Charlotte Cryer respectively. They work in very close harmony with the Head of Highfield, Mrs Rachel Colbourn, and the Headmistress, Mrs Rhiannon Wilkinson, to ensure that Bankfield is an absolutely integral part of HLC.
Finally, it is very much worth pointing out that, unlike many providers of nursery education, Bankfield does not suffer from a high turnover of staff. Our teachers and support staff are very loyal, and, equally importantly, very keen to continue to develop and enhance their already considerable skills.