Francis Bacon, the Jacobean philosopher, famously argued, ‘Knowledge is power’—or, as Bacon originally wrote, ‘Knowledge itself is power.’
At Clarence House Preparatory School (C.H.P.S.), we believe that knowledge itself is power. We believe that the more your daughter knows— the more your daughter retains in her long-term memory—the better she’s going to do in school:
- The more your daughter knows, the more curious she’ll become.
- The more curious she becomes, the more questions she’ll ask.
- The more questions she asks, the more creative her work. (As one our inspirations, the cognitive scientist D.T. Willingham, wittily argues, ‘The most creative geologists have seen an awful lot of rocks’.)
Scientific evidence firmly supports our shared beliefs. Over a century of research into memory, learning, and the mind has yielded an unequivocal conclusion: thinking well requires factual knowledge. This is why the expert teachers at C.H.P.S. have placed the acquisition of knowledge at the heart of their lessons.
Now, on paper, we realise that may sound dry!
What it means in practice is a broad and rich curriculum, with weekly lessons in history, geography, science, engineering, reasoning, philosophy and religion. We conduct experiments, perform plays and put on shows. We write long essays. We write, redraft and publish stories. We explore to some of the greatest stories ever written, including the Greek myths, the legend of King Arthur, and Beowulf. We read classic fiction, like Goodnight Mr. Tom and The Other Side of Truth. And we think hard about complex ideas that most children don’t encounter until secondary school. Ideas like utilitarianism, direct democracy, and the ‘Great Man’ theory of history.
And C.H.P.S. empowers you, the parent, too. If you have older children who attend other independent schools, or attend maintained schools, you’ve probably come to expect you’ll learn little more about what your daughter is learning than ‘Year Four Autumn Term: Romans.’
C.H.P.S. is different. Our subject specialist teachers have outlined, in meticulous detail, the exact facts, dates, events, characters, concepts and precise definitions that we expect your daughter to master in long-term memory. This detail is shared with you and your daughter in our unique Knowledge Books.
Across four years, you’ll receive 12 Knowledge Books. Each book was written and compiled by C.H.P.S. teachers. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else. Each Knowledge Books details the fine detail of what’s being studied that term, from spellings and vocabulary to the Stoic philosophy we consider on Monday mornings, to — yes — facts and dates about the Romans.
In other words, we don’t just stop at, ‘Year Four study the Romans in the Autumn Term’; C.H.P.S. shares exactly what we want your daughter to know and remember about the Romans. At a glance, she can see what she needs to do to achieve 100% in the test; you can see, thanks to the Knowledge Book’s simple question-and-answer format, how to help her revise.
Once you’ve experienced how we apply the science of learning, you may well wonder why all schools don’t work like C.H.P.S..
And that’s another example of why ‘knowledge itself is power’.