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Nursery at Lakeside School
Last reviewed: October 2026 · Inspection data and key information above update regularly, however, this review below is refreshed bi-annually and may not reflect recent changes. Contact the nursery directly to confirm current arrangements. If you spot anything outdated or inaccurate, please let us know.
Communication starts before speech at Lakeside. Intensive Interaction, a school-wide approach, builds shared attention and turn-taking through play led by the learner. That gives the youngest children’s provision a context focused on the foundations of interaction, rather than assuming spoken language is the starting point.
Children can join from age two. The nursery sits within a community special school in Welwyn Garden City designated for children with autism, severe learning difficulties, or profound and multiple learning difficulties. Lakeside also supports pupils with physical disabilities and impairments affecting hearing or vision. Individual needs shape the school’s approach.
Across Lakeside, communication approaches provide concrete ways to understand how learning can work: Intensive Interaction uses an adult’s responsive participation in a learner’s play, with exchanges repeated and gradually developed. Shared attention, facial expression and taking turns become learning activities in their own right.
Total Communication brings together spoken language, object cues, signing, symbols and body signs. Communication systems are adapted to pupils’ sensory strengths. For a child whose strongest route into learning is touch or hearing, this means communication need not depend on looking at pictures or understanding speech alone.
Physical resources across the school include sensory rooms, a trampoline and a swimming pool. Its forest school occupies fenced land in Wheathampstead, with two cabins, a kitchen area and bathroom facilities. Activities there include vegetable growing, crafts and orienteering. These are school-wide resources and activities, distinct from an individual nursery child’s timetable.
Therapy is part of Lakeside’s wider provision. Occupational, speech, music and physiotherapy practitioners contribute targets and explain techniques to staff. They also speak with parents and carers about using therapeutic techniques at home, connecting learning and care across the child’s day.
Family support includes meetings, telephone contact and outreach into homes or other settings. Workshops address feeding, toileting, learning and behaviour. The team aims to make visual support and individual strategies consistent between school and home, giving families practical ways to continue an approach beyond the classroom.
Learning Support Assistants support every class. Behaviour support follows Hertfordshire Therapeutic Thinking: all staff receive Step On training, including diversion and de-escalation, while classroom staff receive Step Up training in physical intervention to prevent harm. Four trainers and autism specialists make up the Behaviour Support team. The distinction matters for families discussing how distress and safety will be managed.
Nursery attendance does not guarantee a Reception place. Discuss Reception-age placement with Hertfordshire Local Authority through the EHCP process.
For Lakeside, Hertfordshire Local Authority makes placement decisions through the Education, Health and Care Plan process. The school can advise parents, but does not decide who receives a place. Families should keep the next placement discussion within that process and distinguish educational continuity from an admission entitlement.
Attendance begins part time: children are entitled to two days at age two, with an additional day each year until compulsory school age. This age-based pattern matters when arranging care around the school week.
The school’s opening hours are 9:00–15:30 Monday to Thursday and 9:00–13:00 on Friday. These are school hours, rather than a nursery session booking menu. Parents can arrange a school visit by telephone and speak with the headteacher or deputy. Contact the office on 01707 327410 or admin@lakeside.herts.sch.uk.
Lakeside accepts children from age two, initially attending part time.
Children are entitled to two days at age two, increasing by an extra day each year until compulsory school age.
No. Discuss Reception-age placement with Hertfordshire Local Authority, which decides placements at Lakeside through the EHCP process.
School-wide approaches include Intensive Interaction and Total Communication, using methods such as object cues, symbols and signing alongside spoken words.
Yes. Telephone 01707 327410 to arrange a school visit and a conversation with the headteacher or deputy.
