Pre-School Provision

Since September 2017 Derwent Primary School formally accepted children from 3 years old in a designated Pre-School provision and into our Caterpillars class.

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.

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

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.

The justification for us lowering our age range from 4-11 years to 3-11 years is because research 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.

Please see below the following documents in regards to Pre-School which you may find useful:

Pre-School Registration form 2025-26