Academic nursery/ preschool in Hammersmith

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I'm looking for a nurturing yet academic nursery or preschool in the Hammersmith and Fulham area to prepare my child for 4+. A friend's child at Eaton Square can write a short story page at 4, while another's at L'Ecole des Petits struggled with phonics at almost 6. I'm fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, and English, and my husband speaks Hindi. I want my child to learn French at nursery, while hearing Mandarin from me, Cantonese from my mom, and Hindi and English from my husband. I'm concerned a bilingual nursery might affect his English, as I want it to match native speakers. Currently, his Mandarin is the strongest. Please give me some advice for nursery choices appreciate you all.

My advice would be to chill the eff out! Jesus.

Tbh this all sounds a bit ridiculous. The 2 examples you give are not helpful or indicative of nursery in my view. What is a story page. This could look like lots of different things. At 6, children will still be working through the phonic sounds. Struggling with satpin is very different to struggling with more advanced sounds. There is much talk in your post about your needs and what you want. I would suggest that a.more gentle and child centred approach may be more fruitful. Being fluent in different languages is fantastic, but I'm fairly certain that the childre are initially a little delayed in their langauge skills as they are.managing lots of different things. Although this can even out you must.bear in mind the reality of the child at 4/5 in contrast to your experience as a multi lingual adult.
With kindness, I think you need to chill out a little and allow your child to feel secure, have lots of interesting experiences, read books, have fun and learn how to build social relationships. A child grounded in these areas will be able to learn well and have the tools for good mental wellbeing that are essential for anyone to achieve their potential.

This.

Umm, at preschool and in reception my son spent most of his time running round shrieking, on the climbing frame and playing with vehicles. He's now very studious and has passed his 11+ this year (what is a 4+??). He absolutely would not have benefited from academic work at nursery, he was not ready for it at all. So you have to see how your child develops, you can't plan it all out for him now.
It's brilliant he has the opportunity to learn languages at an early age though.

Surely a joke thread?? I hope so!

Please let your child be a child develop his play skills and social and emotional skills. I would run a mile at a nursery that was very academic and wanted to do work sheets and writing etc.

How old is your child at the moment? And which schools are you aiming at? I have had experience doing and passing the 4+ with my children and in no way will they ask your child to write a short story (most kids will not know how to read/write, let alone write sentences). Learning through play is the best at this age

Ignore the other messages. In West London, you really want to aim for four foreign languages minimum by age 7 (ours does Japanese, French, Spanish and Mandarin) but that’s hardly enough. You also have to be a concert level musician in time for the 7+ and be able to make the school team in whichever sport the school focuses on (e.g. football, tennis, swimming). Most kids also take lessons in art and drama, it’s essential for creative writing. Mastery of maths goes without saying, but programming is increasingly important so you have to start as early as possible.

Am also in West London and sadly quite can't work out if this is a joke post as well as there is the odd lunatic parent around.
Luckily not the norm though, even at the very selective schools.

That's fantastic news,congratulations! Did your son's school prepare him for the 11+, or did you need to hire tutors?

That does seem to be rather a lot of different languages at once.

Doesn't this slow kids' language acquisition down?

This may not be what you want.

Hi, thank you. No he is at a lovely state primary which has given him great academic skills in general but is not allowed to prepare them specifically for the 11+ and has minimal homework etc. We used the atom learning website and cgp practice books and I explained as needed. It was hard work, a tutor might have been less stressful than trying to get him to listen to me! (Even though he was keen to learn he got himself in a panic if he wasn't sure how to do something and wouldn't listen to me). But he made it over the cut off in the end. We are not in London though.

I hope this thread is a joke, but if not - please don’t bother with French, it won’t be useful.

Languages are becoming an outdated skill, unless you wish your child to become an academic or a dilettante. AI will make the knowledge of multiple languages nothing more than a clever trick, like being able to play a decent game of chess.

Try thinking about what skills might actually be useful in future?

Apologise for not being clear earlier. I come from a Cantonese and Mandarin-speaking background, while my DH is of Italian and Indian descent. We don’t do those languages to impress , it’s our heritage and we feel the need to keep it.

Erm, being able to speak to their family surely.

I’m fairly sure our two speaking to their British Grandma and Sweden Great Grandma aren’t clever tricks, just as them speaking to their Pakistani parent isn’t a clever trick either.

I do think it is very important to keep up with parents languages the acquisition of language may take a little longer but they get there very quickly and rarely mix the languages. Interestingly enough I found that the children tend to speak English with very little accent.

This!

We aren’t a monolingual family either, I speak Urdu, English, BSL and Swedish. My husband speaks Swedish, German and English. Our sons first language is Urdu, he is also fluent in English and Swedish and very good at BSL. Our daughters first language is Swedish, she also speaks Urdu and English and is learning BSL.

But still, you need to chill out. An academic nursery isn’t for the benefit of any child, neither is the 4+, they’re children, not bio-optical computers.

Children need to learn to be children, its an important part of their development, if you choose a more academic nursery or pre-school you’re likely denying them the opportunity to experience a vital part of their development.

My advice would be to just let your child play.
Young children learn more from play than from hot housing.
Also you need to think about her mental health, self confidence and social skills.
Those skills will be much more important in the future than whether she can read and write fluently when she is four.

Understood, that’s clearer now!

I think your plan is ok, my nephews acquired 4 languages fluently in a similar way (3 languages spoken in the home, and a fourth at the childminder’s/preschool).

i would honestly not prioritise French requirement with so much else going on. French is an easy language to acquire later if you already have Spanish - my DD’s school, for example, allow entry to Spanish GCSE based off 3 years’ French tuition and vice versa.