An infant school is a term which is used predominantly in England and Wales. It has been used since the 19th century to refer to schools or school departments that cater for children up to seven years old. Infant classes also exist in schools in Ireland.
Early infant schools were founded across Great Britain beginning in the 1810s. They offered safety at a time when children's lives were being unsettled by economic upheaval and experimented with a variety of methods of teaching young children. In the middle of the 19th century, they were integrated into the nascent English and Welsh state education system and shifted to offering a programme of rote learning. In the early 1900s concern developed that they were teaching in a way that was unsuitable for their very young pupils and they moved towards a child-centred approach.