Cranborne First School and Nursery is a successful, forward-thinking and friendly school with a truly dedicated and professional staff team. We are proud to be a Church of England School with strong links to our local church and part of the Diocese of Salisbury Academy Trust (DSAT) basing our daily endeavours on our beliefs and Christian values.

The school is committed to providing high quality education for all children in a caring, stimulating and attractive environment. In our recent Ofsted inspection (October 2023) the school was graded as 'Good' for the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management and 'Outstanding' for our early years provision. We also achieved ‘Outstanding’ in all areas in  our church school distinctiveness inspection SIAMS (June 2016).

We focus on the vibrancy and love of learning alongside keeping standards high to give our children the best life chances possible. Our children flourish in an environment where they know they are valued, mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn, and where they are inspired to care for others.

We are very fortunate to be situated in a beautiful village, in a stunning rural setting which has been designated as an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty‘. The buildings were completely refurbished in 1967 to provide four large classrooms and a separate hall block, which was in turn modernised in 1995. Further development between 1998 and 2005 provided a school office, Headteacher’s office and two additional first floor learning spaces.

A major development of the premises was completed in March 2011 to build a large, award-winning designed school hall, classroom, staff room and kitchen extension. This development was facilitated by a land swap agreement between Salisbury Diocese and Cranborne Estate and funding through the Salisbury Diocese.

This means that in addition to the classrooms, the school now has a full height hall, staff room, kitchen, upstairs staff work area, Headteacher’s office, school office and staff cloakroom/toilet. The outside space comprises a tarmac playground, a ‘secret’ garden area with an outdoor covered area for Reception, and a variety of storage rooms. The school does not have a grass playing field, but enjoys access to the Mick Loader Memorial Recreation Ground, which is a short walk from the school.

During the summer of 2018 our school kitchen was fully renovated in partnership with the Hampshire company HC3S enabling us to provide nutritious hot school meals cooked on site for our children each day. We are pleased to also provide school meals for two local schools within the DSAT Priory Hub.

We are well-supported by an active academy standards and ethos committee, and have excellent links with our Church and community. Our parents are supportive in raising funds through a variety of events, but most importantly, are always interested in all we do.