Holy Cross Catholic Primary School in Birkenhead recently achieved the Inclusive School Award with Flagship status.
Every Child Has the Right to be Happy
Headteacher Clare Higgins explains why being a Flagship school is so important.
She said, “From a Headteacher’s point of view the self-evaluation provides such a useful audit for us as Heads and as an SLT, it enables you to audit your provision.
“The word inclusion is used lots, and quite rightly so, but actually when you really unpick the layers of what inclusion means I think the IQM audit is a really valuable tool to help you look at what strengths you have and ways forward.
“For us it just embraces our ethos as a school,” she continued. “We’re very much of the belief that unhappy children don’t learn – children who don’t feel included or inspected – and that’s reflected in our core values.
“Our first core value is that every child has the right to be happy, and I just feel that being part of the IQM Family and having that Flagship school status enables us to fulfil that for our children and community.”
Inclusion at the Forefront of Everything We Do
Paula Brás, Deputy Head/SENDCo and IQM
Co-ordinator at Holy Cross, says there have been many benefits to being part of a Flagship school.
She explained, “We attend the Cluster Group meetings and that allows us to see how inclusive practice looks in other schools and it allows us to adapt our own practice as well, it ensure that inclusion is at the forefront of everything we do.
“We are currently working on our Communication and Language Project – which is funded by Cradle to Career – we have really developed that for the last three years to support our children who have additional needs, particularly in communication and language around self regulation and physical development.
“It allows these children to really focus on those prime areas of learning which need to be in place before they can access other areas of the curriculum,” she explained.
“The Flagship Project allows us to really sharpen our focus and to really evaluate our practice regularly, and to make any changes or adaptations that we need to, to really ensure that our practise is as inclusive as it can possibly be.”
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.