About us

Welcome to St Martin’s!

At St Martin’s School and Nursery, we live by our motto: “From small things, great things grow.” We are a small school with big ambition, providing an outstanding education while maintaining the warmth and care of a close-knit environment. We believe in the strength of our community, yet we also see every pupil as an individual. These values are at the core of everything we do.

St Martin’s staff understand that strong, nurturing relationships are the foundation for helping children grow and flourish. Every child in our care is known, valued, and supported because we know that when children feel safe and connected, they can achieve greatness.

Our exceptional pastoral care ensures that each child feels a sense of belonging, while our personalised approach to learning celebrates their individuality and enables outstanding academic progress and achievement. We cherish the richness that different cultures and perspectives bring to our learning environment and are extremely proud of our rich and diverse community. Through hands-on, experiential learning, we create opportunities for students to develop their skills and grow in confidence, preparing them for the world beyond our walls.

At St Martin’s, we truly value the individual. Each child who steps through our doors joins our unique and wonderful community, and together, we help small seeds of potential grow into greatness.

Mr Gideon Zucker
Headteacher
St Martin’s School

St Martin’s school is an Independent, Co Educational school for pupils aged 3-11 years, founded in 1920; an exceptional community in which your child can begin their educational journey.  Boys and girls learn in a small, secure and stimulating environments and move on to some of the best schools in London at 11+.  We offer a broad curriculum delivered by our highly dedicated, experienced teachers who treat each of our pupils as an individual; supporting them to be the best that they can be.  Alongside our curriculum, we are delighted to be able to offer a multitude of after school activities encompassing the arts, sports and languages as well as a program of residential experiences that take place each year.

Our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) encompasses Nursery and Reception classes, taught through the most up to date methods of best practice, supported by research . At this crucial stage in child development, we foster each child’s love of learning and encourage positive attitudes, mindsets and approaches through our school values.  We nurture every child’s interests through a continuous provision of stimulating areas and activities that children access whilst our skilled practitioners use targeted questioning and play-based interactions to develop every child’s personalised next steps. It is our individualised approach, including the daily phonics lessons and 1:1 reading, that ensures our pupils make good progress in all areas of the Early Years curriculum, particularly strong levels of Literacy and Numeracy for which we are renowned.  In Reception, the strong academic focus continues with formal lessons of Reading, Phonics, Literacy and Maths in the mornings and the introduction of Year 1 content. Our EYFS is an integral part of the whole school;  the independent learning attitudes embedded, that are so often lost, are valued, developed and echo throughout St Martin’s in the variety of individualised work our children produce. Equally, our whole school ethos, values and curriculum approach of Topic based learning based around a core text, all begin in Nursery. 

As children progress through Lower School in Form 1 and 2, we consolidate the building blocks of core learning and begin the teaching of Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning. We gradually teach the learning processes and skill sets that support each subject whilst increasing children’s knowledge base with every new curriculum unit studied.  Strengths are cultivated and areas of development are recognised then scaffolded so that every child reaches their full potential. Teachers encourage children to question, analyse and reflect, resulting in children becoming creative, critical thinkers. Homework supports core learning in class and provides children with the opportunity to follow their interests with their own projects which they present to the rest of the school – providing purpose and audience for their work.  

Beginning in Form 3, Upper School is when children are encouraged to take greater ownership of their learning, becoming aware of their own goals in core subjects and planning a variety of investigations and projects that deepen their knowledge within foundation curriculum areas, thus demonstrating their increasing understanding of learning processes and approaches. We recognise that preparing for the 11+ exams is an important part of learning at St Martin’s and it is in Upper School where our accelerated learning system is most evident. Children study English and Maths content beyond their age to ensure full coverage of 11+ topics prior to examinations, as well as having exam preparation and interview skills taught from Form 5. After their exams, children take part in enterprise and community projects embarking on a journey of self discovery tackling some thought-provoking curriculum content and challenging themselves in experiences designed to fully prepare them for their transition to secondary school and life beyond!

Our Motto is quite simple, ‘Ex Parvis Magna Fiunt’; ‘From small things great things grow.’  We believe a strong academic and moral start in life that instils a love of learning will provide the foundations for a confident, adaptable and successful young adult who embraces the joys of life.