Pre-School Provision

Since September 2017 Derwent Primary School has formally accepted children from 3 years old in a designated Pre-School provision.

The aims of our Pre-School are to:

Improve children's readiness for statutory schooling.
Provide a smoother transition to school as children and their parents will be familiar with Derwent Primary School.
Fully integrate the Pre-School into the daily life of Derwent so that the children utilise facilities such as our large playing fields, hall, ICT suite, library and sunshine room.

Our nursery classes - Ladybirds and Caterpillars, are staffed by qualified teachers and nursery nurses as well as extra teaching assistants. This is so that we can provide a high quality early years education that will prepare the children to achieve well in their future schooling.

In April 2023, we opened a second Pre-School class, Ladybirds to welcome more children into the setting.

There will be quality wrap around care for Pre-School children at Derwent with our Breakfast Club and After School Club as we appreciate child care may be difficult for working parents. This provision is subject to availability.

The justification for us lowering our age range from 4-11 years to 3-11 years is research that shows us that:

Children who had early years education gained higher English and mathematics GCSE results and are more likely to achieve higher grades.
Children who had experienced high quality Pre-School education are more likely to follow a post-16 academic pathway.
Children who had experienced high quality Pre-School education are better at self-regulation and social behaviour.

More about this research can be found at Institute of Education website on the EPPSE project pages.

The following documents on the Pre-School which you may find useful include:

Pre-School Registration Form 2024/25

Pre-School Registration Form 2025/26

Pupil Privacy Notice