North Harringay Primary School

Welcome to North Harringay Primary, a friendly and inclusive learning community with the highest expectations and aspirations for all of our pupils. We want our children to enjoy their early years of education and to move on to secondary school full of confidence and enthusiasm for learning.

To help us to achieve this we focus on brilliant basics – ensuring the children learn the key skills they need to master the curriculum – combined with magical touches - a rich programme of educational visits, creative arts, sport and topical discussions. Our Question of the Week every Monday encourages the children and their families to debate key issues and philosophical conundrums. Our aim is for all of our children to be curious, critical, committed, creative and co-operative learners.

North Harringay Primary School is a primary school for children between the ages of 3 and 11 years old. We are situated within a very diverse local population and our children come from a rich variety of cultures, languages, religions and ethnic groups. We consider this diversity to be an asset, which enriches the educational experiences we offer our children.

What it means to be British has never been universally agreed upon and probably never should be. In a diverse, multicultural setting such as North Harringay Primary School, a community composed of families originating from every corner of the globe, we want to encourage our learners, all of whom are growing up British, to better understand the society they live in and their place within it.

In 2014, the Coalition Government issued guidance on what it called “fundamental British values”, defined as ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’ as well as an understanding of British history heritage and traditions. At North Harringay Primary School we believe that all these ideas are important and valuable, not just in Britain but for many people all around the world. This document outlines the various ways in which we maintain and uphold them.

North Harringay’s Personal Development Curriculum emphasises the importance of learners gaining an understanding of how decisions are made at a local and national, including the work of Parliament and councils and the manner in which their members are elected. It emphasises the asking and answering of open questions and throughout our curriculum we encourage rigorous debate and discussion of important issues.

North Harringay Primary School has a clear and consistent behaviour policy based on a set of “golden rules.” The “going for gold” system in classes and three-stage system for escalation of more serious incidents reinforce these rules and teachers are encouraged to agree on an interpretation of the golden rules with their class at the start of the year. In this way young people are encouraged to take ownership of the rules and, by extension, their own behaviour.

The “World Around Us” strand of the school’s Personal Development Curriculum emphasises the systems and structures that keep society functioning effectively, including an understanding of individual rights and responsibilities, our duties before the law and how laws are made. Legal issues surrounding substance abuse including illegal drugs as well as knife crime and sexual relationships are discussed in Year 6 to prepare learners for the more sophisticated and potentially more intimidating environment they will face at secondary school.

North Harringay’s 5Cs emphasise independence, individual expression and creativity and across the school curriculum learners are encouraged to take the lead in their learning, to make choices about it and to make judgements about the appropriate level of challenge they require in different lessons.

North Harringay is an extremely diverse school and the families that form our communities represent many different religions, cultures and belief systems. We are committed to celebrating those differences through our curriculum, through visits and visitors to the school and through international cultural events.

We follow the Haringey SACRE’s agreed syllabus for RE which encourages understanding of the different major faiths and religions around the world. The RE and PSHE curriculum both promote a thorough exploration of how both religious and non-religious people approach questions of meaning, ethics and philosophy. Children at North Harringay visit a range of places of worship throughout their time at the school in order to gain first-hand experience of other religious beliefs and speakers from different religious communities are regularly invited to speak in assemblies.