Deputy Headteacher

Our School
 
Flora Gardens is a mixed Community Primary school of Hammersmith & Fulham Local Education Authority. Flora Gardens School is popular and very well thought of locally. It enjoys a good reputation amongst parents in the surrounding area for its friendliness, high standards, care for pupils and pleasant environment. There are seldom any vacancies, classes generally having a full complement of 30 children.

The school is located in a single-storey building which opened in 1950. The surrounding environment is very pleasant, with extensive grassy areas in the playgrounds. There is a wild garden with a pond, vegetable plots for each class, and many trees including a small, recently planted orchard.
 
The school has eight classes, including a Nursery class. In the Nursery younger children attend part time (a.m. or p.m.), moving to full-time a term before they are due for Reception.

The school's limited accommodation is fully exploited. As well as the classrooms, there are:  a reference library; a fiction library area; EAL Base; staff and teacher-assistant rooms; resources and stock rooms; a large hall with Junior and Infant fixed apparatus and a proscenium arch stage. There is also a small special needs room, a parents’ room and a newly built and fully equipped ICT Suite which was opened for use in March 2006.
 
The school is very well equipped and resourced, with good learning resources for all curriculum areas. The school has networked classroom PCs, laptops and iPad’s equipped with an excellent range of up-to-date software, seven classes interactive whiteboards.

All teachers have teacher assistant support for approximately 50% of the timetable.
 
Children are admitted to the Reception class in two intakes. In the Spring Term, when it is fully subscribed, the school has 240 children on roll, plus 38 children in the Nursery Class.
 
Pupils come from a wide range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Over fifty per cent of pupils receive free school meals. The local area is socially very mixed. Local housing provision includes long-stay accommodation for the homeless, council flats and houses and owner occupied property. A majority of children speak English as an additional language or come from bilingual homes (69%).

The school employs a teacher for special needs, literacy support and support for gifted & talented pupils. Pupils who speak English as an additional language (EAL) in Foundation and Key Stage1 are supported by a part-time (0.6) teacher, in Key Stage 2 EAL pupils are supported by a part-time (0.4) teacher. A music teacher visits twice weekly to support class-teachers with weekly curriculum music and singing lessons for all children. A number of members of staff organise and run after-school clubs. At present we have clubs for netball, football, recorder, choir, dance, gardening and art.
 
The school has a calm, friendly atmosphere. Children are treated with respect and expected in turn to honour their responsibilities to the school community. The school provides a broad curriculum, with appropriate emphasis on English, Maths, Science and ICT. The curriculum is delivered through a balanced whole-school Curriculum Map and supporting schemes of work, organised into a cycle of half-termly topics. There is a whole-school system of assessment and record-keeping. Assessment processes reflect up-to-date practice. Pupil attainment is tested regularly and the school has an interactive tracker system to monitor progress. There are regular conferences between class teachers and the special needs co-ordinator (SENCO). Close liaison ensures that pupils with special or additional needs, and gifted or talented pupils, are well catered for.

We aim to secure the highest standards of quality in Primary education for the benefit of the pupils and community we serve
 
The School Improvement Plan and the Staff Development Plan are reviewed and revised annually; they represent the school’s continuous commitment to improvement and development.

Our Headteacher, Mrs Sonia Birch-Woodcock was appointed in September 2006. Teachers and support staff form a strong, stable and friendly team. The School Leadership Team of the school consists of the Headteacher, deputy Headteacher and assistant Headteacher and a school business manager. The SLT is responsible for strategic planning and management.  Key Stage Teams work collaboratively on planning for continuity and progression within and across the Key Stages.  Every teacher has responsibility for leadership and co-ordination of at least one National Curriculum subject area. The school has recently introduced French into the KS2 curriculum, and is part of a local school network working on producing a syllabus, curriculum and resources for teaching ICT assisted Modern Foreign Languages.
 
Parents are welcome in the school. The school encourages the active support of parents in the classroom. There is a thriving School Association, which organises social and fund raising events and runs weekly coffee-mornings. The help, co-operation and support of parents is greatly valued.
 
The school has a loyal and supportive Governing Body. Several governors have served the school for many years, while some are newer.  However virtually all governors have children who are or were pupils of the school. Governors visit the school regularly and keep themselves well informed. Their support is a valued resource.
 
High quality education and care
 
Flora Gardens Community School is an inclusive, one-form-entry school, treating each child as unique and special. We cater for children aged 3-11 of all races, colours and creeds. We are very proud of our wonderful school grounds which are green and pleasant and which children use for educational purposes as well as play.
 
We expect that all our pupils will acquire the skills and attitudes necessary to:

• Excel
• Be confident
• Be ready to take the lead
• Inspire and influence others
• Be lifelong learners
• Flourish

We aim to achieve our mission through a commitment to excellence. We provide high-quality teaching and learning, and we have high expectations for all our pupils regardless of their starting-point.
 
Safe and Secure
 
We have an atmosphere of trust and happiness in which your child will feel secure and cared-for. As you can read in our Ofsted report, “Pupils are polite, friendly and confident. They feel absolutely safe in school and report that they know the teachers will support them if they have any concerns. Pupils behave well in lessons and around the school and say that pupils are rarely unkind to one another”.

We are passionately committed to the safeguarding of all our children and particularly those who are more vulnerable. We have robust physical and electronic security systems controlling our site’s perimeter. A full-time Inclusions Manager, who is also an Assistant Head, cares specifically for disadvantaged children and children with Special Educational Needs.
 
Healthy Lifestyle, Positive Attitudes
 
As well as taking part in physical education (PE), often with a specialist coach, Flora Gardens’ pupils learn healthy eating, personal hygiene (good tooth brushing, for instance) and about the benefits of physical exercise as part of the normal curriculum.

A School Nurse monitors the health of the pupil population as a whole as well as helping individual pupils who may have health issues.

Getting every day off to a healthy start, we run a popular breakfast club for Years 1 to 6, serving a wholesome breakfast of yogurt, cereal, toast and juice. (Some Reception pupils may be able to attend the Breakfast Club in Flora Gardens Children’s Centre.)

Healthy menus, including vegetarian choices, are always provided for school lunch, which is cooked on the premises. Children are welcome to bring packed lunches instead provided that sweets, chocolate or sweetened drinks are not included. All children have filtered water available at lunch.

A variety of after-school sports clubs is offered by enthusiastic teachers and our specialist coach, and children are encouraged to represent Flora Gardens and compete with other schools in leagues and tournaments.

A wide-ranging programme of personal health and social education tackles rights and responsibilities, awareness of one’s own safety and the safety of others, and many other aspects of life in the modern world. In summary, we instil a sense of caring and responsible citizenship. In Religious Education (RE) and throughout the curriculum, we aim to maximize opportunities for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

Extended Provision

Music, especially singing, is particularly strong at Flora Gardens. We enjoy singing assemblies, concerts of song and instrumental music, and singing to aid learning in other parts of the curriculum. Some pupils take instrument lessons at the Royal College of Music on Saturday mornings, and the College runs workshops at the school.

We offer a very wide range of clubs at lunchtime and after school: Family Learning, Homework, Junior Librarian, Drama, Maths, Science, Choirs, ICT, Football, Gardening, Music, Orchestra, Reading, and Gymnastics are examples of clubs free to pupils.

There are other clubs, also weekly, for which parents pay a small fee. Examples are Art, Taekwondo and Cooking.

The choice of clubs changes at least once every term. After-school clubs end between 16:30 and 17:15. The breakfast club begins at 08:00.
 
Impact on Community/Society
 
Flora Gardens in the Wider World
 
Flora Gardens aims to:

• Help children develop a broad vision of their community and the world
• Be an inclusive community where we start from the needs of the child
• Provide quality education with equal opportunities for all, irrespective of race, religion, gender, ability or social class
• Ensure our children flourish and reach their full potential

There are always exciting visits to museums, places of worship, theatres or parks in the neighbouring area and central London to look forward to. Year 4 swim at Latymer Upper School, for instance, Year 5 always visit France and Year 6 spend a week away at a working farm each year.

We are a community school and relish our role as an institution serving our local community. We have strong exchange links with a school in the Isle of Wight – a contrasting English setting. The nationalities and cultures represented by individuals in our community are richly diverse. All classes except Nursery have regular French lessons. We learn about languages, countries and people all over the world, and about their customs and their food.

There is at least one big concert or dramatic performance, to which parents are warmly invited, every term. The children always use these opportunities, and others like Red Nose Day, to raise money for charities supporting the needy in all parts of the globe.