The Olive School Hackney

The Olive School, Hackney is a Muslim faith primary school, established in response to community demand for high-quality education that meets the aspirations of local families. We are a Muslim faith school that promotes traditional British values and welcomes applications from all faiths and none.

Our vision for Olive Hackney is that it is a happy, friendly, safe and encouraging place where everyone feels welcome and valued; a place where expectations are high and achievement is expected and celebrated; a place where all members of the school community care about each other; a place where behaviour is exemplary and where success of all kinds is celebrated.

The Olive School, Hackney is part of the Tauheedul Education Trust. As a progressive, inclusive and outstanding Muslim faith school, the Governing Body will consider all applications equally without reference to faith.In order to help you to understand the admission process better, we have produced a number of documents listed below. Please read the documents carefully. We hope you will find them helpful and informative.

Our pursuit of educational excellence is based upon our unshakeable belief that every child is unique, special and has the capacity within them to succeed. As a result, staff offer an inspirational and life-enhancing educational experience for all children and work tirelessly to ensure that each and every child is nurtured, inspired, challenged and supported to succeed and develop their natural gifts and talents. We aim to build the skills, knowledge and positive attitudes necessary to help all our pupils become responsible, respectful and tolerant citizens of the future – exemplary members of their community who contribute to the development of a successful society.

At the Olive School we recognise that all knowledge is sacred and worthy of pursuit and that lifelong learning is a tradition of Islam and other world faiths.The curriculum at the Olive School is designed to foster thought, curiosity and a desire for learning in all children regardless of their backgrounds, strengths and needs. The curriculum will provide a solid foundation for future learning ensuring that the key skills in English and Mathematics are taught well through creative and enjoyable lessons.The curriculum will operate at three levels and will address all pupils’ academic, personal and social development.

Most of our parents responded to our request to complete our annual questionnaire. We were delighted by your responses. Some of you also gave us some really helpful suggestions to make our school even better. Here is what you said and what we did about it.

Each pupil has a personalised learning journey designed to challenge and support them. The school has a rigorous half-termly assessment cycle to track progress in Reading, Writing, Phonics and Mathematics and these are regularly reviewed by the senior leadership team and governing body.Half-termly pupil progress meetings are also conducted with all class teachers to discuss progress and early action is taken to address any areas of concern. Parents also have an important role to play. They receive termly progress cards and are required to attend performance review meetings that cover their child’s academic progress, attendance and behaviour.

The pupils’ levels are obtained from the tests and from the teacher’s assessments that are carried out during the year. This shows us what pupils have learned and retained during the previous two years. The tests help school understand the strengths and weaknesses of each pupil in each subject.

The Governors are passionate about The Olive School and are here to make sure that every young person is given the best education, opportunities and experiences possible. Our Governors play an important role in overseeing the work of the school, acting as “critical friends” for the Senior Leadership Team and holding the school to account for performance and development.

We teach our pupils the importance of being kind, compassionate and respectful to everyone that they meet, irrespective of their faith, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class or any other perceived differences. Through our leadership specialism, community service projects, and interfaith alliances, our pupils meet inspirational people from a diverse spectrum of backgrounds, beliefs and cultures, and are encouraged to embrace all that life in modern Britain has to offer.

We also consider it essential for our staff to lead by example and exemplify and model British values. British values are therefore built into our staff induction processes and reiterated in all staff training exercises.

The examples provided below – whilst by no means exhaustive – serve to demonstrate how British values permeate our curriculum, ethos and a wide range of leadership activities, along with our commitment to providing ample opportunities for our pupils to develop a strong moral foundation and a drive to make a positive impact in their local community, Britain and beyond.

Our pupils are introduced to the concept of “democracy” and “the majority vote” from a young age, participating in Pupil Council elections (where representatives are elected by way of a democratic process) and engaging in a wide range of discussions concerning issues that directly affect them. Pupil voice is considered to be of utmost importance, and members of the Pupil Council are encouraged to vote on key issues that are likely to affect their classmates, as well as bringing their own proposals to staff for consideration.

Pupils who are appointed to leadership roles are taught how to effectively represent their classmates and the importance of considering everybody’s viewpoint when making an informed decision and reaching a common consensus. Such pupils must demonstrate civic, moral and performance character in order to command the respect of – and act as an advocate for – their peers.

Pupils are encouraged to become politically aware from a young age and participate in debates concerning age-appropriate issues, developing arguments for and against carefully-chosen topics. In doing so, they learn how to put forward a strong case for causes they believe in (an essential part of the democratic process), as well as how to employ both facts and emotion in order to resonate with other people.