We currently do not offer a Pre School Unit.
Archived Pre-School Information
We have a small Pre-school unit attached to the school, click on the link below to read the
Pre-School Brochure. If you have any questions we are always happy to discuss your requirements.
Quotes from parents
“The Pre School Unit is a safe, friendly and happy environment. My child’s self confidence grew, he learnt how to write his name which I was very pleased with, he also learnt skills that prepared him for school.”
“My son recently attended the nursery and absolutely loved it from day one. He learnt so much in such a short space of time without him even realising because he was too busy having fun. The staff are amazing nothing is too much trouble for them, this really helped him settle in straight away and put my mind at ease. I would highly recommend this nursery to anyone.”
Pre School Admissions
Free Early Years Provision
All three and four year olds and some two year olds in England are currently entitled to free, part-time early learning, care and development.
Three and Four Year Old Free Early Years Provision
It lasts for up to two years, until children reach statutory school age. Children can currently attend on a part-time basis for 15 hours a week, for 38 weeks of the year. This can be taken flexibly over a minimum of two days, and a minimum of 2½ hours per day with up to two providers.
When does my child qualify for the free entitlement?
Child born between Term of eligible entry
1 April – 31 August – September intake
1 September – 31 December – January intake
1 January – 31 March – April intake
Some maintained settings may be able to admit children earlier than the date stated above. Please talk to the individual provider who will be able to give you more information.
Where can I access the free entitlement for my child?
- Maintained (Durham County Council) nursery schools and nursery units.
- Children’s Centres.
- Private, voluntary and independent day nurseries and playgroups or childminder
How do I apply?
For further help or information, please contact the Childcare Places Team on the contact details below. To find out about childcare options in your area, please contact Families Information Service on the contact details below.
Families Information Service
Durham County Council
County Hall, Durham, County Durham, DH1 5UJ
Tel: 0800 917 2917
email: fis@durham.gov.uk
Childcare Places
Children and Adults Services
County Hall, Durham, Durham, DH1 5UJ
Tel: 03000 268 913
Limited places are available.
Pre School
We have places available at our very successful Pre-School from September 2016. If you would like more information or would like to have a look around our school please contact us.
Pre-School-Brochure-Sept-16
Photographs of our Pre School area
Application for Grant
We were so pleased that our application for a grant from the Neighbourhood Budgets of Councillors Heather Smith and Andy Turner was successful.
The funding has been used to provide more storage in the school hall and classroom. The funding has allowed us to change the doors and catches on the toilet cubicles and also provided more hand basins to enable our three year old pre-school children to access them safely. Thank you to everyone involved.
We have vacancies in our pre-school provision from September 2017 and look forward supporting all parents including working parents who may qualify for the free 30 hour childcare. Please contact us if you would like more details.
Pre School Planning 2016-2017
Week 1 – Ourselves
Week 2 – Best Friends or Not
Week 3 – Senses
week-4-three-little-pigs
week-5-the-little-red-hen
week-6-goldilocks-and-the-three-bears
week-7-room-on-the-broom
week-8-halloween
week-9-hovis-the-hedgehog
week-10-children-in-need
week-11-billy-goats-gruff
week-12-the-gingerbread-man
week-13-jack-frost
week-14-the-christmas-bear
week-15-elmer
week-16-elmer-and-the-lost-teddy
week-17-elmer-and-the-wind-and-elmers-weather
week-18-the-lion-who-wanted-to-love
week-19-farmer-duck
week-20-whatever-next
week-21-superworm
week-22-the-tiger-who-came-to-tea
week-23-the-smartest-giant-in-town
Week-24-the-rainbow-fish
week-25-the-gruffalo
Week-26-we are going on a bear hunt
week-27-easter
week-28-the-hungry-caterpillar
week-29-the-bad-tempered-ladybird
week-30-giraffes-cant-dance
week-31-aaargh-spider
week-32-harry-and-his-bucketful-of-dinosaurs
Week 33- Walking through the Jungle
Week 34 – Dear Zoo
Week 35 – Lighthhouse Keepers Lunch
Week 36 – Black Eyed Bill
Week 37 – There was an old pirate who swallowed a fish
Week 38 – Funfairs
Letters sent re Pre-School
Pre-School-Xmas-event dates
Pre School Letter Parent-Views
Pre-school-Harvest-Festival-21-10-16
Pre School Photo request
Pre-School letter list and snack
Pre-School Privacy-notice-to-early-years
Photos of Pre School children and activities
w/c 19th June 2017
This week our story is the Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch, we all had the opportunity to play with the lighthouse/seaside themed tuff spot, we also discussed going for a picnic, and what we would like to eat. With this in mind, we had our very own picnic, we made the sandwiches and we even washed and cut the fruit. However due to the weather it was an indoor picnic!
w/c 12th June 2017
This week our story was Dear Zoo, we had a zoo ready for us all to explore.
Following our story this week we made a monkey milkshake. We had to help cut the bananas, add the milk and the last ingredient, chocolate ice cream (to represent the monkey) and then it was all mixed in the blender – delicious!
w/c 5th June 2017
This week our story was Walking Through the Jungle. We were all able to play and enjoy the small world jungle.
w/c 22nd May 2017
This week our story has been Harry and his Bucketful of Dinasaurs. The photos show us enjoying the dinosaur themed mosaic arts and crafts activity.
w/c 15th May 2017
This week we have been learning about spiders. We focused on the story Aaargh Spider! by Lydia Monks. Here is some art work created by the children.
w/c 1st & 8th May 2017
This weeks story was The Very Bad Tempered Ladybird. Here are some of the pictures we created, we even had the friendly ladybird included in the pictures some of the children made.
w/c 24th April 2017
This week our story is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we used some stamps and painted a picture to show our own take on the story.
w/c 3rd April 2017
Our story this week was Were Going on a Bear Hunt, with the help of Reception and the help of a map to help us find the bear, we set off on an adventure, repeating key refrains from the story on our way!
Pre-school and Reception worked together to make edible egg nests! We melted the chocolate, mixed in the corn flakes, put them into each nest and finally we added the eggs as the final touch!
w/c 27th March 2017
Pre-school Red Nose Day activities
Our story this week was The Gruffalo – look at the Gruffalo crumble we all helped make and more importantly eat!
w/c 20th March 2017
We made some beautiful mother’s day card. We all decided which style we wanted, colour and message inside.
w/c 13th March 2017
Our story this week is The Rainbow Fish. Look at some of our drawings!
w/c 6th March 2017
Our story this week is The Smartest Giant in Town. We investigated the reason behind why boats float. We also figured out if we thought other items would sink or float, such as spoon, scissors, cup and many other toys.
We started planting this week, We started with the soil, then added the seeds and then gave them some water and finally some sunlight! We have sunflowers and peas and we will soon be planting some strawberries!
w/c 27th February 2017
Pre-school have been reading the tiger who came to tea. In their play they chose to sort out the play food and plates, cups etc. into colours. This had started by two of the children finding things for the tiger to eat and choosing carrots and arranging them together. They counted five carrots then said the carrots are orange and started to sort the other items by colour.
Pre-school used tiger colours relating to the story to make their own tiger picture.
Pre School dressed up and took part in the World Book Day.
w/c 13th February 2017
We made some lovely pictures for Valentines Day.
The story this week is Superworm, we decorated a costume for our very own superhero!
w/c 6th February 2017
We discussed at the beginning of the week how Baby Bear took a picnic to the moon, and we all discussed if we could have a picnic, what we would like to eat? So we decided we wanted to have a picnic on the moon too! So off we went to the moon for a special picnic. We packed for the picnic and whoosh we were gone!
Once we came back to school we had some ice lollies, rocket shaped of course!
w/c 30th January 2017
Our story this week is Whatever Next! We decided that Baby Bear needed a waterproof hat, as when it rained he got wet. We used junk materials to make him a hat and we also made him a new rocket.
w/c 23rd January 2017
Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep, Baa baa
This week our story is Farmer Duck. We looked at the different farm animals in the story. We created a sheep using a paper plate. The children loved sheep so we focused on this particular farm animal.
w/c 23rd January 2017
The story this week is the Lion who Wanted to be Loved. A story of a Lion called Leo. We made pictures of a lion using a fork to paint the mane.
We decided we wanted to ROAR too, just like Leo. So we made our very own masks!
6th/17th January 2017
We looked at lots of different items of clothing and footwear. We had to decide if this was something best suited to wear during summer or winter.
We have enjoyed playing outdoors with the water. We have cared for plants by watering them. Pretending to be window cleaners and cleaning the fences.
Using a milk bottle we created an elephant! We used tissue paper to decorate.
w/c 9th January
We all worked together to create our very own Elmer. We used different materials such as paint, crepe paper, tissue paper, felt and more to show off Elmer’s different colours.
Elephant Footprints. Today we tried walking like an elephant. We looked at an elephants footprint and created our very own.
People who help us. This week all of preschool have took an interest in dressing up and taking on role of various different occupations/services that help us.
w/c 12th December
We are all ready for the Christmas party! We got a surprise visit from Santa.
Pre school picked the sprouts out of the vegetable patch for the whole school to enjoy with the Christmas dinner.
w/c 5th December
We have been learning about Jack Frost this week. We decided we had talked a lot about ice and decided to do an experiment to see how quickly ice melts. We held an ice cube in our hand to see how quickly the heat from our hands melted the ice.
w/c 5th November
We picked apples off the trees, with these we can make a yummy apple sauce for the school christmas dinner next week.
w/c 28th November
Run run run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man! We decorated gingerbread men before they were able to run away!
w/c 21st November
Three Billy Goats Gruff was the story this week. With the help of Reception we acted out the story, using a prop.
w/c 14th November
Bandanas for our own teddies
Pre-School brought in their very own teddies. We gave them all a bandana so they look just like Pudsey Bear!
Pudsey Bear Fun Run
We joined in with the Pudsey Bear Fun Run!
Pudsey Bear pictures
We made our very own Pudsey Bear pictures using pens and paint.
11th November
We made poppies using tissue paper and pipe cleans. We were able to wear these when we walked to the memorial in Hamsterley.
4th November
Pumpkin Painting
Following our story this week. We decided to make more pumpkin pictures! To help us we used half an apple as our pumpkin shape. We were able to press an apple into the paint and use this as a pumpkin stamp.
31st October
Pumpkin Seeds
Our story this week is Winnie and the Amazing Pumpkin!
We all had a look inside a pumpkin and we noticed seeds inside. We decided these seeds could be used to make a wonderful picture of a pumpkin. We decided we needed to firstly glue the seeds to the paper so they are secure then we were able to paint our picture using pumpkin colours.
18th October
Witchy Potions
We made our very own potions just like the witch did in our story (Room on the Broom). Our ingredients included:
- Dragons tears
- Blood
- Left over magic sparkles
- Bats
- Tiny pumpkins
- Ghosts
- Snakes
13th October
Weather jumping fun!
12th October
Today we made porridge just like the three bears did. We talked about how Goldilocks had ate all of baby bears porridge. We had a choice of honey, chocolate and jam to enjoy with our porridge.
11th October
On Tuesday morning we watched Topsy and Tim indoor camping, this sparked our idea to make our own indoor den.
Afternoon creative fun 10th & 11th October
We spent time on Monday and Tuesday afternoon having free choice to create something. We had a selection of paper, glitter glue, tissue paper and other junk card materials that they could use to create something.
Week ending 7th October
Pre School children have been learning about The Little Red Hen. They read the story and made bread.
Everyone helped make the bread and all had a taste once it was baked.
Week ending 30th September 2016 – Pre School children have been learning about The Three Little Pigs and have been working on activities from this story.
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- Straws, sticks and bricks were used in the pictures
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- Children made a picture using different materials just like the story
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- Play dough activity – to make some wooden planks.
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- Play dough activity – making a pig’s face.
Playing in the pre school garden on lovely sunny September day.
Admiring the wild flower
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- Learning to use resources to count
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- Learning how to write
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- Learning about shapes
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- Counting activities
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- Counting activities
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- Learning how to plant daffodil bulbs and learning how important it is to water and care for the bulbs
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- Pre School learning to count
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- Reading Time in the Pre School
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- My name is Busy Bear, I go home with Pre School children
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- I love reading books
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- I love going on sleep overs and new ventures
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- I have my toothbrush ready
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- And my night clothes, where will I go on my next visit!
Children who will be joining our Pre-School in September came to visit for a couple of morning sessions, they all had fun and are looking forward to starting in September.
