Pinehurst Primary School has achieved the Inclusive School Award with Centre of Excellence status.
‘It’s What You Want From a Family’
Pinehurst Primary School “is a big hug. It puts its arms around you. At Pinehurst, you know someone cares about you. It’s what you want from a family”. “It’s central to the lives of the children and parents”. The concept of Pinehurst Primary School being a family was a common thread which wove its way throughout the two-day assessment. “Staff know the whole family”, “we provide a safe place. Staff go over and above to ensure that Pinehurst is more than a place of learning”.
Pinehurst Primary School is based in Anfield, Liverpool. It currently has 442 pupils on role from 2-year-old Nursery to Year 6. The school has a transient population and has a low percentage of pupils who remain on roll from Reception to the end of Year 6.
The catchment area for Pinehurst Primary School falls within an area of Liverpool experiencing high deprivation, with a third of the local ward falling within the top 1% of the most deprived neighbourhoods nationally. Over 60% of Pinehurst pupils are entitled to pupil premium (PP) funding.
Over recent years, Pinehurst has seen a significant change in the cohorts which enter school. Currently, approximately one quarter of the school population has English as an additional language (EAL). There are currently 19 home languages within the school. The school supports those families who attend who are asylum seekers.
Improve Attendance
The Senior Leadership Team (SLT) is striving to work with parents and carers to improve children’s attendance. SLT talked about the desire for every pupil to be able to access the full school experience, whether that be in class, through trips or the enrichment clubs on offer.
The school is promoting punctuality through presenting the class with the best attendance and punctuality each week with a trophy and also, children who attend every day and are on time every day will be entered into a draw with the prize being a £10 voucher each week. Some pupils are already planning what they would like to spend their voucher on should they be fortunate to win the draw!
The SLT and school staff work tirelessly to promote positive relationships with parents/carers and pupils. This was very evident from talking to representatives from these groups during the assessment days. Staff at Pinehurst “go above and beyond” according to one parent our Assessor spoke to.
Parents described the staff as ‘5 stars’ because “they are amazing in all that they do”. The stakeholders spoken to, spoke passionately about their involvement at Pinehurst. It was very evident that they all really care about the whole school community and that this level of care doesn’t stop at the end of the school day.
Pinehurst Primary School serves the whole community, not just the pupils. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the newly appointed SLT introduced a mobile phone access system which parents and carers had access to should they be in a situation where they required urgent advice/help/support and there was nowhere else to turn to. The school has maintained this service to parents post-pandemic. The Learning Support Mentor described this as “a bridge for parents”. Our Assessor was told parents respect and value the phone service offered to them and that its usage reflects this.
‘Experience, Excel, Enjoy’
Pinehurst School is central to the lives of the pupils and parents who form the ‘Pinehurst family’. The school’s ethos of ‘Experience, Excel, Enjoy’ demonstrates how the SLT has adopted a holistic approach to supporting the children and families and everything can be evidenced and witnessed around these three words.
All stakeholders are striving to achieve a positive culture within the school where every child, adult and family receives the best experience possible, not just while their child is a pupil, but beyond Year 6 too. “We have an open-door policy. Some parents will just call in for a cup of tea”.
“School works very closely with external agencies to ensure that “all the pieces of the puzzle fit together”. When talking to practitioners who are external to school, they were able to share the impact of their roles within Pinehurst and how they are included as part of the team. They spoke about the effective methods of identifying needs and pathways of support that are put in place to support the pupils and their families.
The curriculum was evaluated and rewritten during the school closures in 2020 and as a result, it now presents pupils with ambitious and challenging learning opportunities.
The children access texts such as ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens in Year 4 and Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, poetry by Tennyson and Blake in Year 6.
The curriculum is made accessible to all through a variety of methods including texts, comic strips, visual media and scaffolding.
Through Quality First Teaching (QFT), “staff prioritise learning, looking at starting points and building on from there so as to “close the gaps”. Long-term plans and overviews of learning are shared via the school’s website.
The assessment lead who was new to the school in September 2023, was able to talk about the journey that staff are embracing with assessment and the tracking system and how this information is feeding back into the planning. Our Assessor was told that there are different methods of assessing for the foundation subjects in order to include the needs of all children and that staff are very good at “facilitating opportunities to demonstrate pupils’ knowledge”.
Children’s Needs and Understanding
The curriculum has been made so that it is relevant to the children’s needs and understanding. For example, in geography, children across the year groups learn about the local area, focusing on tourism, starting with school and working out to the wider region of Liverpool. Books have been specifically chosen to support and promote diversity, not just the content of the books, but the authors too. These books help to provide an insight into the experiences of others, such as ‘The Unforgotten Coat’ by Frank Cottrell-Boyce which focuses on asylum seekers and forms part of the Year 6 English curriculum.
A member of the SLT explained, “We work as a team so that it opens up avenues to support the children. We have all been class teachers, we love spending time with the children. We are privileged as SLT that we can spend time with children and parents/families”.
It was very clear to see that SLT, staff and Governors are proactive in creating a welcoming, inclusive family for the community and other stakeholders, based around diversity and the feeling established through their ethos to ensure that “everyone knows and understands what it feels like to be part of a family”.
Find out more about the IQM Inclusive School Award
If your school is interested in obtaining the IQM Inclusive School Award or you wish to talk to a member of the IQM team please telephone:
028 7127 7857 (9.00 am to 5.00 pm)
or email: [email protected] for further details.
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