The Best First Step
A nurturing Nursery where curiosity blooms, friendships form, and little learners feel right at home.
A Gentle Start with Giant Leaps
We all remember our child’s first steps – and at Sherborne Prep, we make sure their first step into education is just as magical.
Our Nursery opens its doors to children the term after they turn three, welcoming them into a world filled with warmth, wonder, and joy.
Set in a bespoke classroom made just for them, our youngest pupils thrive on individual care, gentle encouragement, and the kind of playful learning that builds both confidence and character.
Friendships blossom early, relationships with staff run deep, and children begin their school journey feeling secure, happy, and excited to come back every day.
Learning Beyond Four Walls
In our Nursery, the great outdoors is more than a backdrop – it is a classroom in its own right.
With their very own safe, secure, and adventure-ready play space overlooking the orchard, children are free to roam, explore, and engage with nature daily.
Weekly Outdoor Learning sessions give pupils the freedom to climb, dig, splash, and discover their role in the natural world – whether it is spotting bugs, lighting fires, or scooping up tadpoles from our newly refurbished pond. It is messy, marvellous learning that sticks.
And while the Nursery is their base, we love to stretch horizons. Children take trips across our wider school site and into the historic heart of Sherborne, where every old doorway and abbey arch becomes a springboard for imagination.
A Seamless Step into Reception
We know that for parents, moving from Nursery to Reception can feel like a big leap.
But at Sherborne Prep, it is smooth, supported, and joyfully familiar. Our Nursery children already feel part of the school – they share lunches in the main hall, attend assemblies, have buddies that play with them from the Prep and join in with playtimes alongside their future classmates.
There is no dramatic shift or big goodbye – just a natural progression into the Pre-Prep building next door, where new challenges await in a setting that still feels like home.
From shared activities with Reception through to visits from Year 7 ‘Pupil Listeners’, our little ones grow up with role models, routines, and real excitement about what is next.
The best transitions are the ones that do not feel like transitions at all. That is exactly what we have built here.
Where Next?
