St John’s Angell Town Primary School has achieved the Inclusive School Award with Flagship status.
High Quality Support
St John’s Angell Town Primary School is a one-form entry primary school in the borough of Lambeth, with one Nursery and one Reception class. The majority of pupils come from a Black African or Black Caribbean background and a large proportion of pupils speak English as an additional language. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium is high and numbers of pupils with SEND is slightly above average. The school itself is situated in an area of deprivation.
St John’s Angell Town is working very hard to provide high quality support for its learners, in spite of the fairly dismal national context. Funding and resources are ongoing concerns in this country’s education system. Schools have faced budget cuts, impacting the quality of education and limiting the availability of support services and resources. St John’s is tirelessly seeking and securing funding to ensure that its pupils have personalised teaching and learning experiences and have their needs best met.
The Executive Headteacher, Mrs Nicola Zeronian-Dalley, said “the therapeutic provision we offer our families and learners is our biggest achievement with an ever-decreasing budget due to falling pupil numbers. Brixton Learning Collaborative (BLC) and SEND Lambeth provide a huge amount of funding to fund our therapeutic services. This year has made a big difference as CAMHS is moving in upstairs and Place2Be have started. This is all due to adults getting those funds secured”.
Staff are Very Committed
In the United Kingdom, educational inequality remains a significant issue, with disparities in educational outcomes between different socio-economic groups, ethnicities and regions. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds may face additional barriers to accessing quality education, leading to an achievement gap. St John’s Angell Town’s focus on providing therapeutic support and adaptive teaching means that the educational inequality is non-existent.
The Inclusion Manager, Ms Roye, reports that “Staff are very committed and work very hard. Whatever challenge comes their way, the children are always in the forefront of their mind. Due to staffing restructures, class teachers have not got a lot of support. But we are like a family” The Headteacher, Mr Williams, reports: “Despite financial pressures on the school, we are still determined and are creative problem solvers, finding funding to offer therapeutic support”.
The mental health and well-being of children have become increasingly important issues in the United Kingdom’s education system. High levels of stress, anxiety and mental health problems among children can impact their ability to learn effectively and engage in the educational process. The Flagship Project that St John’s Angell Town Primary School has embarked on, is vital for supporting the mental health and well-being of its children, parents and staff. Mr Williams, Headteacher, reports “(therapeutic provisions) help with low confidence, safeguarding and anxiety issues. Another trusted adult is an extra layer of protection for children”.
There are national concerns about teacher recruitment and retention, with factors such as workload pressures, limited career progression opportunities, and inadequate support contributing to a shortage of teachers, impacting the quality and continuity of education. What is clear at St John’s Angell Town is that therapeutic provisions are for staff as well as children. Staff drop-ins to the Lambeth MHST are well attended and the staff group is very much a team who act as each other’s back-up team. When speaking to staff, our Assessor was told that “Many staff have worked here for years. Staff’s children came to this school. We have families who have attended here for generations. There is a good history of pastoral care and strong care. The Church has a strong link with our school community”.
Sense of Care
What is clear from the moment of arrival at St John’s Angell Town Primary School is the sense of care, of family and of community. The Chair of Governors summed this up when he said “it is the family atmosphere that makes this school special. When it comes to mental health the school support the children and empower them to get the best out of them”. There is a real sense of community where Dads are invited in to make ‘cake in a jar’ for example, using the space to talk about their different backgrounds, different cultures, their own experience of being children and how that impacts them as fathers.
Speaking with a group of parents, our Assessor was told “I’ve always felt that there is a strong sense of community at St John’s and parents and families have always turned up to support the school. It is one of the most attractive things about the school – the sense of community”.
Staff who have left the school have come back to volunteer, as do some of their own family members. There is a person in the local community who comes and helps the children with gardening and a local landscape gardener who also comes to help and he in turn invites children to his garden to plant bulbs. Family and Friends of St John’s is a group run by parents and staff of St John’s Angell Town School. This group is very important to the school.
Parents and staff volunteer their services, experience and time to raise money for resources for the school. For example, they have raised money to resource the library through putting on summer and winter fairs and holding monthly cake and ice pole sales. They have supported charities like The Little Princess Trust which provides free real hair wigs to children and young people who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment or other conditions. One child at St John’s Angell Town volunteered to have her hair cut off and given to the trust, to raise money.
Everybody our Assessor had the pleasure to meet at St John’s from office staff, to support staff, to teachers, to Senior Leaders, to governors, to parents, to outside agencies, to children were able to speak positively about the school and about how hard everyone works and how much everyone cares for each other. It really is a school with a massive heart and a determined, can-do attitude. The Inclusion Manager, Ms Roye, organised a timetable which gave me the opportunity to see all aspects of the school’s inclusive practice and to meet many of the therapists who deliver the well-being and therapeutic provisions.
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.
Want more information on the IQM Award? Click here to request your free IQM information pack