Thorpe Hesley Primary school is a large, friendly Ofsted outstanding rated Primary School with current provision for children aged 3 to 11. This includes a vibrant and friendly 65 place nursery and comprehensive wraparound care provision, with a successful breakfast and after school club. We are proposing to expand our current nursery provision to include provision for two-year-olds from September 2025. This would include daytime provision from 8:50 until 15:00, split into morning and afternoon sessions, as well as a breakfast and after school club from 8:00 until 18:00.
The government has recently announced a plan to deliver 3,000 nurseries by upgrading spare spaces in primary schools to create nursery provision. The current childcare sufficiency data indicates that there is insufficient capacity in this area to meet the projected take-up of early education by two-year-old children. Creating this new two-year-old room within our existing nursery would help to meet that need.
The works would involve building an internal wall to split one of our existing Reception classes, creating two smaller classrooms, one of which would remain as a Reception classroom and the other would become our two-year-old room. This would be connected via an internal door to our existing nursery as well as having separate external access as well as internal access of the main corridor. This will create an indoor space of 69m² which would provide provision for a maximum of 27 two-year-olds. This would still leave ample space for our Reception children – with a classroom of approximately 81m² and two further semi-open plan classrooms with a shared area of 140m² for our PAN (maximum number of pupils per year group) of 70 children. We also plan to create a separate fenced outdoor area with immediate access from the two-year-old room, providing them with a secure outdoor play area in addition to the ample external space provided by the school grounds.
Our vision for the two-year old provision is that it will offer the same outstanding provision as our current nursery under the direction and leadership of our well–established foundation stage team.
If you wish to leave a comment regarding this proposal, please use this link or QR code to our feedback form. The form will close on Thursday 12th December.
https://forms.office.com/e/DFuE9Zgds7
