The school welcomes children from 3 years old.  There is one assistant for every qualified teacher. In the main nursery, children are grouped according to age:

In the final year of nursery, children aged 5 years (grande section or GS) share a classroom with first year elementary pupils.

The 1989 Orientation Law has organized the primary school education into learning cycles.

The first two levels of nursery school form the foundation stage (cycle des apprentissages).

The third level of nursery school (GS) starts the second cycle of elementary school, (cycle des apprentissages fondamentaux).

Learning in the nursery school is structured through play. Teaching is not through specific disciplines, but the following general fields:

Young children acquire language through daily life experiences. They develop their language skills in class by speaking French and are taught to communicate with others by understanding each other’s words or by making themselves understood. The foundations are set for children to explore the French language and access its culture and literature in the future.

Because of the young child’s malleable listening and speaking skills, nursery school is an ideal place to introduce foreign language.

At the Arthur Rimbaud French School, children commence Greek or English studies from the first year of nursery (petite section):

In the final year of nursery (grande section), all the students are required to learn Greek and English:

Within the context of this new and demanding world, children learn to share and test their freedom, constructing new relationships with their friends and adults. They develop communication skills, from showing shy or aggressive behavior to being able to converse easily and calmly.

Developing motor skills is very important in nursery school. Children need the opportunity to experience different environments to learn about themselves and to develop their physical skills. They are encouraged to explore new surroundings, their sensations and emotions. They learn how to cope in groups and discover how fun it is playing together.

Nursery school stimulates the child’s curiosity and helps them discover the physical and living world around them. It initiates them into the world of man-made objects, physics and natural sciences. They explore their spatial surroundings, learn to organize their time and solve problems. By conducting simple experiments, children learn to reason, formulate questions, predict outcomes, and explain the phenomenon under investigation.

For the young child, feeling and understanding, imagining and reasoning are still deeply linked. Nursery school helps the child to develop expression that coordinates body, sight and gesture. The creative process is highly encouraged: to search, invent, transform, and express pleasure.

Nursery school also introduces the world of art and culture to the young one.