It is just over forty years since St Thomas More Catholic Primary School in Hesters Way was officially opened by Bishop Mervyn Alexander, accompanied by Father Tom Lane, the then Parish Priest. It was the turn of the School’s new Nursery and Pre-School to be blessed on Friday 16th October by Rt. Rev Declan Lang, ninth Bishop of Clifton.

The new community nursery and pre-school welcomed a number of visitors, some of whom  also attended a whole of school Mass.

Chair of Governors, Mrs June Little comments: “It was wonderful to welcome Bishop Declan Lang and our other guests to our new facility on Friday.  Everyone involved in the project worked extremely hard and it will was lovely for us to get together once more to officially open our nursery and pre-school.  Already we have had considerable interest from parents in the area and are planning an Open Day to be held on 26th November so that prospective parents and their children can see what we have to offer. It is a wonderful way to celebrate the start of our School’s 40th birthday year with the official opening of the new building.”

Having a pre-school on the same site as the main primary school enables children from as young as three years old to spend up to two years being prepared for main stream primary education. The pre-school is managed by the Early Years teacher Mrs Counsell along with two Level 3 Practitioners Miss Mills and Mrs Tupper, with the same school governors and Head Teacher as the main school ensuring that the same ethos runs through both.

Funded by Gloucestershire County Council, the pre-school was constructed by Manchester based Cotaplan, specialists in bespoke modular buildings, who ensured that everything was done to the highest standards. Using this type of structure enables schools to build quality classrooms at a fraction of the cost and time of more traditional builds.

The preschool caters for 24 three to four year olds per session with two sessions per day during term time.