Mulberry Bush Academy

Our ‘Mulberry Bush Academy’ is an exciting initiative designed specifically for the children in the year before starting school. It is dedicated to ensuring that our amazing pre-school children become ‘school-ready’ and prepared for a smooth and confident transition to the next chapter of their education. 

Children will become part of our MB Academy in the September prior to starting in school reception classes. They will have an incredible year of the very best preparation for primary school life, benefiting from a carefully thought-out programme of activities and experiences, all under the supervision of our brilliant Early Years Advisory Teacher, Kathryn ‘Kat’ Radcliffe, and our incredible pre-school teams. 

Kat is an experienced primary school teacher who has worked with children from nursery age up to Year 6, and she has a special interest in working with nursery age children ensuring that they are best placed to make the most of the transition to school and reception class. 

Kat is responsible for the supervision of our phonics programme, role modelling delivery of the programme to our team and delivering it to our Pre-school children when based in each nursery.  She is hugely passionate about early reading and books, and enjoys beautifully role modelling story times to our Pre-school teams.  Kat works directly with the children carrying out group speech and language interventions, focussing on skill development in all areas of learning.  She also supports our pre-school team in delivering best practice in areas of literacy and mathematics, as well as carrying out assessments of our pre-school children and their skill acquisition.  

Kat operates as a super numerary team member, with the freedom to focus on small groups of children at a time.  The adult:child ratios in our Academy remain high, enabling really high-quality teaching and interactions.  Kat is available to support parents should they have any questions about their child’s eventual move to primary school.