FAQs

Nursery

Your child can begin their learning journey from 6 months old. We offer a comprehensive childcare setting in our award winning Nursery.

Pre-School (Pre-Reception)

Pre-school children can join our Pre-Reception class from 2 years 9 months old. Pre-Reception at Sherborne House School offers children a high standard of care within a secure, inspiring learning environment where children are helped to develop, become active and learn independently. In addition, your child will receive specialist PE, French and Music sessions as part of their week.

Children from Reception Year to Year 6 can join at any time in the academic year.

Although the majority of children do join at the start of the academic year; we do understand that other circumstances can mean that children join at different times in the year, therefore, children are welcome to join us at any time during the year.

For children in Pre-Reception and Reception, the school day will start at 8.30am and finish at 3.45pm.

For children in Year 1 to Year 6 the school day will start at 8.30am and finish at 4pm.

Our extended day offers:

• Early Morning Breakfast Club from 7.30am – 8.30am
• After-School Lakewood Club is offered from 4pm until 6pm
• Extra-curricular clubs are offered from 4pm-5pm throughout the week

Although our class sizes vary, we have around 20 pupils in a class. In the majority of year groups, we have 2 classes.

Children are set English homework on Mondays, Maths homework on Wednesdays.

Spellings are set for Tuesdays.

Reading books and Library books are sent home for guided reading.

Homework is expected to take 10 minutes for Lower School and between 15 – 30 minutes in Upper School year groups.

French is taught by a specialist modern language teacher from Pre-Reception through to Year 6.

Spanish is introduced to children in Years 4, 5 and 6.

Absolutely! We arrange specialist peripatetic teachers to provide a full choice of music lessons which are arranged through our Head of Music and Drama, Mrs Shelagh Lee.

At Sherborne House our children learn a wide range of sport, including:

• Athletics
• Cricket
• Dance
• Football
• Gymnastics
• Hockey
• Netball
• Rounders
• Rugby
• Swimming
• Tennis

Our aim is to make sure all our pupils fulfil their potential, and that we identify and celebrate all abilities and talents.

We encourage able pupils to extend their learning through problem-solving tasks, project work and friendly House competitions.

Where appropriate, we support and encourage children applying for scholarships to senior schools, and we have an excellent record in this area. Our school leavers in 2023 achieved a total of 19 scholarship offers.

That said, it is just as important to support and nurture pupils who find academic work more challenging.

We have a fully-integrated special-needs department, staffed by a qualified teacher and an assistant. They offer multi-sensory help with literacy, numeracy, and personal development skills. Close links between home and school are an essential part of this department’s work, and we encourage parents to become involved in supporting individual learning programmes.

We also support pupils for whom English is an additional language.

We have an open-door policy whereby parents may meet, e-mail or talk by telephone to teachers in order to discuss day-to-day concerns and their child’s progress.

The school office will send out reminder emails, updates and news.

A fortnightly e-newsletter allows parents to keep up-to-date with school events and their child’s year group learning.

More formal feedback is given through parents’ evenings and detailed, written reports.