In January 2014, the ‘Little Oaks’ Nursery at The Oratory Preparatory School opened. This new building will complement the existing facilities at the School by offering term time childcare for children between 2 and 4 years of age.
The new building follows some of the character of the existing Pre Prep facilities – with the same single-storey pitched roof style and covered walkways for circulation and access. The classrooms will have ceilings open to the rafters with rooflights to create a bright, spacious feeling internally while allowing low eaves height, thus keeping the scale of the building down. The building has been designed to meet the Ofsted National Standards and area guidelines for Early Years provision and has been carefully planned to achieve the best possible layout and quality of accommodation in a compact and attractive way.
A soft natural palette of materials is proposed to blend in with the woodland setting – natural stained horizontal timber boarded walls with a tiled pitched roof to match adjacent buildings on the site.
The Nursery will consist of three classes, each with sixteen children. There will be two Kindergarten classes and one nursery class with dedicated teaching staff, meeting the ratio requirements of 1:3 in the nursery and 1:8 in the Kindergarten classes.
The numbers within the Nursery classes are in line with the rest of the school and are small enough to ensure the children receives quality one to one attention but also large enough to encourage social interaction and play.
Mr Bloom from CBeebies attended the official opening hosted by the chair of the Governors Mr M Hasslacher
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