The Purbeck School is a mixed community TOE school in Wareham

Wareham, Dorset

Wareham is an historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles southwest of Poole.-Situation and geography:...

 in the central southern area of Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, near the Isle of Purbeck

Isle of Purbeck

The Isle of Purbeck, not a true island but a peninsula, is in the county of Dorset, England. It is bordered by the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the north. Its western boundary is less well...

.

The organisation of schools in the Purbeck area is based on a comprehensive three-tier pyramid system. Children transfer at the age of 9 from fourteen First School

First School

First school and lower school are terms used in some areas of the United Kingdom to describe the first stage of primary education. Some English Local Education Authorities have introduced First Schools since the 1960s...

s (ages 5–9) to four Middle School

Middle school

Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...

s (9-13). Most of them will then come to the Purbeck School (13-18).

The school is home to the Purbeck miniature railway.