Three preschool years, from the age of three. These are the years when a child learns to speak, to listen, to hold a pencil and to live alongside twenty other children — and when they decide, often for a long time to come, whether school is a pleasant place to be.
Much of what plays out in primary school is prepared here. A child who arrives in Year 1 with vocabulary, a hand that knows how to hold a pencil, the habit of staying attentive for a few minutes and the wish to do things well does not start from the same place as a child discovering all of that at the same time as reading.
Preschool is now a full part of the Moroccan school journey, and we treat it as such: clear goals for each year, teachers who observe and record progress, and real progression from one year to the next.
But it is still preschool. Children learn by playing, by handling things, by singing and by getting things wrong without consequence. At this age, boredom and constraint teach nothing.
You do not ask the same things of a three-year-old and of a five-year-old. Each year has its own demands.
Coming into school.
The year of separating from home, of the first collective “good morning”, of the first independent gestures. Children learn to line up, to listen to a story right through, to name what they see, to work with modelling clay, thick brushes and large beads.
Enriching and refining.
Language takes off: longer sentences, more precise vocabulary, the ability to tell a story. The hand comes under control — children draw, cut and glue. They start to count for real, to compare, to sort, and to recognise their own name.
Getting ready for Year 1.
The pivotal year. Children work on the sounds inside words, on writing letters, on first quantities and on sustained attention. By the end of the year, a child should be able to stay focused on a task, understand a two-step instruction and hold a pencil correctly.
Which year your child joins depends on their age at the start of the school year. Give us their date of birth and we will answer straight away.
The day always alternates between quiet times and active times, between whole-class times and small-group times. A three-year-old cannot sit through an hour of the same activity, and we do not ask them to.
The outline alongside is that of an ordinary day. Exact times, school days and the organisation of outings are given to you when you enrol and displayed at the school entrance.
Children say goodbye to their parents, put away their bag and coat by themselves, and find their friends again. The morning ritual is always the same — that is what makes it reassuring.
Everyone sits together: the date, the weather, who is here and who is away, the song of the day, what we are going to do today. This is the moment when children learn to speak in front of others and to listen when it is not their turn.
The class splits into small groups that rotate: language with the teacher, pre-writing patterns, handling numbers, guided free play. This is where most of the learning happens.
Running, climbing, throwing, dancing. Physical activity is not a break from learning: it is learning — learning the body and space.
The afternoon gives more room to picture books read aloud, to rhymes in Arabic and in French, and to painting and collage.
Children tidy up together, go back over what they have learned and collect the day's work. They leave with something to tell you about at home.
Six areas, worked on every day in different forms.
Understanding, making yourself understood, building vocabulary, telling a story. It is the number one area in preschool: everything else depends on it. Arabic gives the class its structure, and French settles in through rhymes, picture books and daily rituals.
Counting for real — not reciting. Counting out a set of objects, comparing “more” and “fewer”, recognising numerals, sorting, ordering, copying a pattern. Shapes and sizes come along with it.
Gross motor skills — running, jumping, balancing — and fine ones: cutting, threading, screwing, drawing. The hand that will write in Year 1 is prepared here, with modelling clay and scissors.
Waiting your turn, lending things, saying “I don't agree” with words rather than with your hands, helping a classmate. This kind of learning takes time and is worked on every day, situation by situation.
Painting, gluing, modelling, singing, dancing, playing a small part. At Les Écoles Melrose, the arts are not a Friday-afternoon reward: they are a way of learning, and the walls of the school show it.
The seasons, animals, the body, water, the plants they grow in class. Children observe, describe and ask questions — the first scientific habits begin here.
Starting primary school is a real change: you sit still for longer, you write properly, your school bag is heavy. Many children experience it as a rupture because they change school, building and adults all at the same time.
Here, that is not the case. Your child stays in the same buildings, sees the same faces at playtime, and their preschool teacher can speak directly to the Year 1 teacher about what they can do and what is still fragile.
No child ticks every box at the same time, and that is fine. What matters is that you know where yours has got to — and you will.
What you prepare on your side, and what you can expect from ours.
The full list of required equipment, along with information about school clothing, is given to you when you enrol.
For practical questions — lunches, transport, after-school care, fees — give us a call: we would rather answer you precisely than announce arrangements here that change from one year to the next.
Preschool takes children from around the age of three, in the first preschool year. As everywhere, admission depends on your child's date of birth in relation to the start of the school year: call us with the exact date and we will tell you straight away which year they would join.
The first few weeks are designed for exactly that. We set up simple, unchanging landmarks, we name what is about to happen before it happens, and the teacher keeps you informed about how your child is getting through the day.
Tears in the morning are common in the first few days and almost always stop quickly — often before you have even reached the end of the street. If that is not the case, we talk it over with you and adapt.
That is what is generally expected at the start of the first preschool year, and above all it is more comfortable for the child. That said, accidents remain normal at this age and are never made into a drama — which is why we ask for a change of clothes in the bag.
If your child is not there yet, tell us honestly when you enrol rather than after the term has started.
Yes, French is there from preschool onwards — but in the way preschool does things: through rhymes, picture books read aloud, games and the rituals of the day, not through grammar lessons.
The aim at this age is for the ear to grow used to the language and for the child to dare to repeat, not to produce perfect sentences. English comes later in their schooling.
In preschool we observe rather than mark. The teacher follows very concrete things: vocabulary, sentence length, independence, how a pencil is held, the ability to concentrate, the way they play with others.
These observations are shared with you at meetings with the teacher and in the progress documents handed out during the year. And if something worries us, we tell you without waiting.
A question that is not here? Write to us or call 05 23 37 16 14.
A ten-minute visit will tell you more than a web page. We welcome families all year round, with or without an appointment.