The Unhurried Years

Of everything we do at Wendy, I am perhaps proudest of our early years. It is where the school first earned its name, and it remains, to my mind, the most important work in the building — even though, to a passing visitor, it can look like nothing more than children at play.

Play is not a break from learning

There is a temptation, felt by anxious parents and schools alike, to rush the little ones — to have them reading, writing, and reciting as early as possible, as though childhood were a race. I understand the worry, but I have watched thousands of children grow, and I can tell you plainly: the years from three to six are not a race. They are a foundation. And a foundation laid in a hurry cracks later.

When a four-year-old stacks blocks, sorts colours, listens to a story, or squabbles and makes up with a friend, they are not wasting time until “real” school begins. They are building the very things real school depends on — attention, curiosity, language, confidence, and the social habits of a classroom. Play is their work, and it is serious work.

What we protect

So in our kindergarten we protect the things that matter at this age. We keep the rooms warm and unhurried. We tell stories and sing. We let children move, make, and wonder. We settle them gently into the rhythm of school so that they come to feel it as a happy, safe place — because a child who loves coming to school at five will usually still love learning at fifteen.

The reading and the writing come, and they come well, in their proper season. But we refuse to buy a little early fluency at the price of a child’s delight in learning. Get the early years right — unhurried, joyful, secure — and everything that follows has firm ground to stand on. That patience is not a lack of ambition. It is the highest ambition we have.