Clapham School inspires students with an education founded on a Christian worldview,
informed by the classical tradition and approached with diligence and joy.

We understand “worldview” to signify the lens through which we see, understand and engage the world around us. A Christian worldview is a way of doing so that is uniquely shaped by the Christian faith. Our instructional philosophy therefore reflects the following convictions:

We see all truth as God’s truth.

We believe that all learning is only possible through enlightening work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, all knowledge of the true, good and beautiful comes as a result of God’s revelation, whether by His general revelation through the natural world and human culture, or through the special revelation of prophets and apostles in His holy Word.

We promote a biblical worldview.

Our desire at Clapham School is to teach through the lens of God’s truth. We do not limit our Christian learning to our Bible class or chapel lesson, but seek to discover the biblical perspective inherently present in all subjects. In this way, we integrate the heart and mind and nurture the soul.

We see children as created in the image of God.

We believe that because of their God-given role as stewards of creation all children capable of learning and have the capacity to engage ideas at all levels of development. Indeed, children’s minds are “not vessels to be filled, but fires to be ignited” (Plutarch). We each have a capacity for creation ourselves and education should provide opportunities to engage fully, with heart as well as mind, and with hand as well as head. We do not predigest knowledge for students, but give them the opportunity to engage as thinking persons with the texts and ideas in each class.

Charlotte Mason succinctly expressed our philosophy when she wrote, “But we hold that all education is divine, that every good gift of knowledge and insight comes from above, that the Lord the Holy Spirit is the supreme educator of mankind, and that the culmination of all education (which may at the same time be reached by a little child) is that personal knowledge of and intimacy with God in which our being finds its fullest perfection.”

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