We provide high quality nursery education and care for 2 - 5 year olds

Dorking Nursery School was founded in 1939 and has long been at the heart of family life in Dorking. It has always excelled in Early Years education, with consistently good Ofsted reports. The most recent, which rated the school as outstanding, said..."Happy and extremely well behaved children enjoy their time at school and achieve extremely well. Children attain the standards they are capable of in each area of learning because the staff have high expectations and know the children well." Ofsted.2010

Since 2000, the nursery has expanded into several other buildings on the same site and has extended its services. Its establishment as a Children's Centre in late 2007 is an exciting development. During 2008 we have had major rebuilding work, allowing us to extend the nursery care to younger children, and to take more 3-5 year olds than previously. Details of each group can be found by clicking on the relevant link in the side panel.

From September 2008 the Early Years Foundation Stage is the statutory curriculum framework from birth to five years. The nursery adheres to the principles in the curriculum

It has the following principles:

• Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self assured
• Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person
• The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's development and learning
• Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected.

We know that in the nursery the children learn best when:

• They are happy and secure
• They are interested in what they are doing and they can relate it to their own experiences
• They are involved in play and hands on, real life experiences
• They socialise with other children and adults
• They play with children of a similar age
• They have free access to high quality outdoor and indoor play
• They are given opportunities to take risks, problem solve and make mistakes without fear of failure
• They are given uninterrupted time to focus
• They are involved in a balance of child-initiated and adult-initiated activities
• They have access to a broad curriculum covering all the areas of learning
• They are offered a range of learning styles to meet their individual needs
• Staff are involved in their learning and use their skills to support and extend the child's learning in the most appropriate way for that child at that moment
• Staff know the child well and have a good understanding of each child's level of development and learning style
• Parents and staff share information and work together for the benefit of the child.