Vaughan Primary Inclusive School

June 23, 2026

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Vaughan Primary School is a three-form maintained primary school, with nursery provision. The school is recognised within its local community for its supportive atmosphere. The school values of respect, enthusiasm, politeness, being encouraging, caring and truthful are evident throughout the school building and establishment.

The curriculum is structured to support progression and individual interests of pupils, with class texts sourced and selected to prepare students for future life. The school offers a comprehensive and rich extra-curriculum programme of lunch and after-school activities and works hard to develop cultural capital opportunities with visits out of school, and visits to the school from external visitors which enhance learning. These might involve, for example, visits to places of learning to encourage pupils to learn about different cultures, cultural practices and diversity.

There is a carefully curated selection of wider support and pastoral opportunities for pupils, including sensory circuits used in each year group, bucket time, SALT, Lego therapy and a CBT trained counsellor, who runs individual, group and lunch activities. Pastoral staff pick up feedback and specific requests raised by pupils in a post box, and allocate team members to speak to pupils in response.

Parents praise yearly social story booklets given to pupils as they transition into the school and then from one year group to the next. There are strong links between Vaughan Primary School and the two secondary schools in the area, with Vaughan engaging in in-reach and out-reach support and providing various workshops and transition systems.

Pupils are especially enthusiastic about available volunteer roles such as School Council, House Captains, and Bistro Buddies, and events such as the Spelling Bee. Pupils understand and can talk about their individual responsibilities: “I am responsible for bringing my reading book in on a Monday”, as well as their wider responsibilities such as climate awareness.

Listening to pupils

Vaughan Primary School has ben working on embedding adaptive teaching practices and responding to student voice. Staff training has supported the roll out of widgets to support adaptive teaching in English and Maths, and these are now used consistently. Lesson inputs, worksheets and aids enable flexible scaffolding and there is monitoring of adaptive strategies based on year group. Training and checklists and have been instrumental in ensuring consistency. Widgits are now also used in lunch systems and lunch menus, allowing all children to access these independently.

Pupils take on a range of roles and responsibilities around school and talk openly about how they have helped shape changes at school.  An example of this is the “Talk-O-Meter” and input into shaping the behaviour policy. House Captains talk about their roles in supporting others on the playground and around the school, and pupils talk about feeling proud of their leadership roles.

Leaders are keen to ensure all pupils can confidently express their views on their school life, not just those in pupil leadership roles; and take an active part in their education, feeling their voice heard and represented, knowing their ideas are appreciated, understood and acted upon, where appropriate.

Communication and Regulation

Vaughan Primary have ambitious and inspiring plans to increase and support self-regulation. The school plans to measure starting points across the school community and begin a training programme as well as planning out a curriculum model.  Senior leaders will set out how planning and delivery within the curriculum model will enable solution focused learning, supporting wellbeing. Staff and parents will be trained in shared language and trauma informed approaches, and the school has begun a journey of creating and remodelling classrooms, promoting consistency and changing expectations of the classroom environment, including visuals displayed and what is required in sensory areas.

The school has exciting plans to work on and develop pupils emotional responses linked to climate challenges, investigating local and global dimensions as part of this.

Vaughan Primary School is a forward looking school committed to supporting pupils as individuals and ensuring that everyone feels part of the school family. Congratulations on achieving the IQM Inclusive School Award.