St Antony’s RC Primary School has achieved the Inclusive School Award with Centre of Excellence status.
‘Primary School of the Year’
St. Antony’s RC Primary School in the London Borough of Newham was established by the Ursuline Nuns in 1862. The ‘direction of travel’ of the academisation of schools by the Diocese and the Government nationally led the former to invite St. Antony’s to join 5 other primary schools to form the Our Lady of Grace Multi-Academy Trust (OLOG MAT). This direction, and a wish to ‘safeguard’ the provision of Catholic education and the other benefits of belonging to a MAT, led the school to join it in 2020.
The Headteacher joined the school in January 2014 when it was at the bottom end of the Borough league table. With an uncompromising and relentless focus on pupils’ progress and attainment, St. Antony’s climbed up the league table and in 2018, received the first of many accolades – ‘The Primary School of the Year’ (in the top 1% of schools nationally which were consistently achieving outcomes above the national average in reading, writing and maths). Others followed. It featured as a Centre of Excellence and Achievement in a 2018 Parliamentary Review with the school invited to the Houses of Parliament; it was named 2018-19 ‘School of Success’ by the London Mayor and Minister of Education, Nick Gibb; and in November 2019, it received the honour of being named the ‘School of Decade’ by the Sunday Times. In January 2018, an Ofsted Inspection rated the school as “Good”. In June that year, St. Antony’s was judged “Outstanding” in the Sec. 48 (RE) Inspection.
Accompanying the Headteacher at the whole school assembly on the first day of this assessment, Year 6 pupils led the singing of ‘I See the King of Glory’ as other classes entered respectfully and joined in the hymn. The joyful singing was modelled by the guitar playing music lead in the school (also a Year 4 Class teacher) with all the staff enthusiastically participating in the hall.
The Deputy Headteacher introduced the assembly theme of ‘Inclusion’ and posed a series of questions, ‘what is inclusion?’. KS1 pupils responded: ‘everyone can join in and everyone is equal’, ‘no one is alone, and everyone is participating’, ‘no one is left out.’ ‘Do you all get a chance in class?’, to which there was a unanimous show of hands. With more than 400 pupils in the school hall enthusiastically participating in the singing, listening and responding, the assembly set the expectations for the learning day ahead.
‘We Can All be Strong’
Year 6 continued and performed a song with the words ‘we can all be strong,’ whilst another boy shared that ‘…meeting needs of all the children is a priority’ and the chorus rapped ‘ain’t no child left behind in this school’. ‘Groups …. Why do we have groups?’ asked a Year 6 child before explaining ‘….as everyone has different talents, works at a different pace, not all children speak English and need to develop in this language… some of us have listening, speaking and hearing support, some of us need 1:1 support…. Why can’t we be in the same class? We all have different needs and that’s why we have groups.’
Another Year 6 elaborated that ‘we work in mixed ability groups so that we can help each other’. Another Year 6 group listed all the things the school offered, the Breakfast Club and 40 other activity clubs and concluded the assembly with ‘we are inclusive to raise standards’. The school’s motto, ‘Learning Together in God’s love’ with mission statements of ‘understanding differences but respect each other…celebrate our special talents as children of God’, were visibly on display and showed some of the youngest pupils had a deep grasp of this key area.
These differing learning needs among pupils at St. Antony’s are what ‘excites’ the SENDCo/Inclusion Lead and acting Assistant Headteacher about her role. Holistic assessment of the pupils in their early stages of learning has enabled the school to target bespoke support for identified pupils. All new entrants to the school have a 1:1 meeting with the Inclusion Lead, who also leads on pupil admissions. There are about 25 in-year admissions who are made aware that being admitted to this ‘reputable’ and ‘high achieving’ school is ‘not going to be a walk in the park’. These are the reasons parents give for wanting to enrol their child at St. Antony’s.
Inclusion Vision is Holistic
The Headteacher began the first assessment day by describing the inclusion vision as ‘holistic’, and through which ‘every child knows they are valued, their needs met and that they feel proud of themselves’. This belief is grounded in the school’s core value that all children ‘are wonderfully made’. High academic standards are given as much importance as pupils’ welfare and wellbeing.
The Headteacher’s approach of ‘I see, I stop, I touch’ is modelled to staff and parents, so when she noticed a pupil who is normally bubbly but now had a sad demeanour, she sensitively questioned the pupil who ‘opens up’ about the reason why. With coaching and mentoring, the pupil developed a different strategy to overcome the issue with such resounding success that the parent emailed the Headteacher with enormous gratitude.
A teacher, similarly ‘sees’ a pupil looking unwell and called home, advising the child should be taken to see a GP. The school takes its lead on such examples of Social Moral Spiritual & Cultural (SMSC) from the MAT, where this philosophy is core to their practice.
‘Living Wage Campaign’
During the challenging period of the Covid-19 pandemic with lockdowns from March 2020, the school took the meaning and practice of SMSC to new heights. This period exacerbated many parents’ situation of struggling to make ends meet. Taking on several jobs to pay the bills meant some parents were unable to support their children with homework or even see them off at school in the morning.
The school, which had been collaborating with The East London Community Organisation (TELCO) as part of the London Olympic legacy kept by the Government to support the local community since 2014, called in their support. Together, TELCO, pupils and staff put their case to the CEO of London City Airport. Having listened carefully to the children’s presentation of why its employees should get a living wage, the CEO consulted his team before agreeing to the pupils’ request. The success of this initiative reached the ear of the London Mayor who then contacted the BBC to cover the story.
As a result, St. Antony’s is now the face of the London Living Wage Campaign which is now national. It has influenced many corporate and civil organisations to become Living Wage Accredited, changing the lives of workers at local, regional and national levels.
In addition, St. Antony’s sphere of influence is also evident through the following initiatives:
• KS2-3 Transitions – some KS2 pupils had moved on to local secondary schools, where the English work in year 7 was insufficiently challenging. After sharing this with their primary Headteacher, she set about working on a new Transitions model.
Impressed, the School Improvement Partner invited the Headteacher to share this with all the primary and secondary Headteachers in Newham.
St. Antony’s became a lead school with the Transitions Programme involving more than 40 schools across the Borough between 2016-2019. To accelerate learning and keep pupils motivated, the programme established commonalities in forms of approach, language and terminologies used across KS2-3 English language and literacy. A direct outcome has been the development of a GPS App called ‘Grammology’, which many schools in the Borough still use today.
• Maths Lead – while the Deputy Headteacher was placed at another local teaching school for her NPQH placement, she took the initiative to pitch her plan to raise standards in the placement school by using effective strategies to move the lower attaining groups (LAGs) to middle and middle groups to higher (HAGs). The Deputy Headteacher modelled teaching to the identified teachers who also observed her teach Years 3-6 maths at her own school. St. Antony’s is used as a model of good practice for schools within the OLOG MAT and at the teaching school where a Maths Hub is set up so teachers in need of support can access it.
• English Lead – staff training within the OLOG MAT schools has become a standard practice. However, each school takes a lead in its area of expertise and shares good practice. St. Antony’s shares good practice in English with all the MAT schools.
• Moderators – members of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) at St. Antony’s are LA moderators.
• Equality & Diversification in schools: Having turned St. Antony’s prospects around and committed to raise awareness of this inclusive area, the Headteacher has been invited to conferences and seminars as a keynote speaker since 2021 by the Director for Education for the Diocesans of Brentwood, by the Eastern Regional Arm of the NEU and by three Academy Trusts across the Brentwood Diocese.
The Headteacher was invited to the inaugural staging of the British Black Talent Award held in Birmingham, recognising top achievers in their field from across the country, including from education, finance, medicine, law, the civil service, entertainment, service industries, STEM and research. She received the National Award for her dedicated work in Education, particularly among pupils and families from a challenging and highly deprived area.
St. Antony’s holds externally validated local and national awards on: National Online Safety; Partnership London SCITT; Transport for London; Arts Council-Gold; Investors in People; A National Crime Agency Commend; Eco-Schools; Healthy Schools; Sunday Times ‘School of Decade’.
Our Assessor added, “Thank you to the staff, pupils, parents and governors who extended a warm welcome during the 2 IQM assessment days. I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing about some inspirational inclusive practices and the resulting awards and accolades received by both the staff and pupils. The inclusion vision modelled by the Headteacher and her team will undoubtedly continue to hold the school in good stead for years to come for the benefit of all the pupils and the community.”
Find out more about the IQM Inclusive School Award
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