Marmalade Bear - Wandsworth Common
The Marmalade Bear is situated close to Bellevue Road and Wandsworth Common Station in St Magdalene Church Hall. The Head Teacher is Miss Ruby Ramsamy, who has been teaching at the Marmalade Schools for 5 years and is a trained early years educator with expertise with children who have additional needs. The School is based in 2 large halls and is close to Trinity playing fields where we have shared use of the Finton House secret garden. There are five visiting teachers for specialist subjects. The Marmalade Bear was inspected by Ofsted in February 2025 and is now Outstanding in all areas.
Miss Ruby has grown up children and has been in early years teaching for most of her working career. She has lived and worked in South West London for most of her adult life and and is well known in the wider Marmalade community. Miss Ruby is focused on each child reaching their potential and ensuring the each child's needs are met.
The Marmalade Bear staff are all well qualified, experienced, and passionate practitioners led by Miss Ruby. Miss Ruby and the team have developed creative learning strategies catering for different children’s learning styles and interests. During the day the children undertake purposeful activities to challenge and extend the children’s skills and abilities. This is all achieved in a warm and friendly environment where all children have a safe and stimulating place to learn. In addition, playing and learning in mixed age ranges allows the children to support each other building empowering relationships.
Parents are involved with many of the activities and events held at the school to foster a close working relationship with our parents. The use of Tapestry is an excellent way for the parents to be involved with the school and for the school to share information. The school is very well resourced with new equipment to ensure the best for all the children. The Marmalade Bear shares the ethos of being an inclusive school with many different religions, ethnicities, non-traditional families and abilities at the school. We celebrate many different religious festivals.
Parents are involved with many of the activities and events held at the school to foster a close working relationship with our parents. We encourage parent participation and hold events such as sponsored wheelies, sports day and parent stay and play. We also have an active PTA which helps create a friendly community around the nursery. Marmalade Bear children have access to specialist teachers in a range of additional activities such as Ballet, French, Activ Ts, Small Sports, Music with Pippa Poppets. The children also spend one morning a week on Wandsworth common engaging in Forest School activities.
