Maris Stella Pre-Primary School is a vibrant, happy place for young children to learn and grow!

The Pre-school is a loving, nurturing environment that places emphasis on the development of the whole child i.e. cognitive, social, emotional, physical as well as spiritual formation of the child.  

Our daily programme includes more formal lessons of music, drama, religion, PE, swimming and interactive theme discussions. 

The Free Play periods allow for opportunities to explore different art techniques and media, fantasy play, block construction, puzzles and games, sand and sensopathic play as well as a large garden with apparatus that encourages gross motor development.

The School Readiness Programme follows the Revised National Curriculum, incorporating aspects of the Learning Through Activity Programme as well as the MATAL system.  (Matal means “Science for Children”.  It is a programme developed at Tel Aviv University which encourages a mode of enquiry.)

Our Junior Primary Religion teacher visits each class for one lesson a week.  As a Catholic School we express our faith freely, beginning and ending each day with prayer, singing Christian songs and listening to Bible stories.

The Aftercare facility is situated in the Pre-School.  Some of the girls stay until 2.30pm while others are at school until 4.45pm.  The afternoon Programme includes a quiet rest time, an art activity and supervised indoor and outdoor play time.  A snack is served mid afternoon.

Our Mentor Programme assigns two Grade 12 girls to each class in the Pre-school and these Mentors visit their classes regularly during arrival time (7.30 – 8.00am), getting to know the girls and helping with the early morning activities. 

Whilst the Pre-school is very much a part of the Maris Stella School family, we are a separate unit within the Maris Stella Campus.

Private teachers come in after school to teach Tennis (Grade R only), Speech and Drama and Ballet (for Gr 00 and Gr R) and Swimming (First and Fourth Terms only.) 

We only offer swimming for the Gr 000 at Maris Stella as we believe that it is essential not to ‘overload’ young children with extramural activities. 

Our little girls have a very busy morning at school and we believe they need time in the afternoon for unstructured play.