Acacias Community Primary School

We are a long established community school, initially established in 1908 with just 14 children. We now have almost 480 children on roll and are proud of all they have achieved over the years in a happy and purposeful atmosphere. We regard everyone associated with the school as a member of our team. Parents and carers are an essential component of our school and it is a well known fact that children learn more effectively when parents and carers and the school work closely together. Governors are dedicated to Acacias and are also very much part of our team. We all work together within the community we serve to provide the best possible educational start for all our children.

The primary purpose of a governing body is to ensure the quality of education provision and to act as the accountable body for the school. The governing body has responsibility for ensuring good conduct and high standards of educational achievement in the school.

At Acacias Community Primary School, we work hard to provide a caring, stimulating and inclusive environment where every child can reach their full potential.We recognise that you know your child best and you may feel that they need some additional help or support for some or all of their time at school. The information included here is to inform you of the types of support available for your child at Acacias. It will help you to understand who can help and how this support can be accessed.

All pupils in school receive quality first teaching. This means that a range of teaching and learning styles are used and that appropriate learning objectives are set for all children with a curriculum matched to their needs. All classes are supported by teaching assistants and pupils are also frequently offered additional small group work or interventions where needed. Where necessary, reasonable adaptations are made to learning environments to support children in their education.

If a child continues to have difficulty, has a high level of difficulty when they join us or as they change during their school life, they may be considered to have a special educational need or disability (SEND).Progress is monitored closely to help inform any decisions around special educational needs, with concerns from parents/carers and school staff being used to initially identify a possible need.

Children with SEND have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age. They will need extra or different help. Schools and other external agencies can help most children overcome their difficulties quickly and easily. A few children will need extra help for some or all of their time in school.

At Acacias we believe it is important that we endeavour to work in ways which promote community cohesion. We aim to build community cohesion by promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion for different groups of pupils within school. Alongside this we strive to promote shared values and encourage our pupils to actively engage with others to understand what they all hold in common.In addition to promoting a strong community ethos within the school, we also endeavour to work in partnership with the local community which we serve.

At Acacias Community Primary School we acknowledge and cherish the fact that every child is different and every child counts. We strive to allow all of our pupils to achieve and succeed to their full capabilities and beyond, and we believe that in order to do this we must embrace the differences in our pupils and support these differing needs. We aim to provide a relevant broad based curriculum within a caring environment in which all pupils can develop towards their full potential regardless of ability. As a school we do our best to ensure that the necessary provision is made for any pupil who has inclusion needs and those needs are made known to all who are likely to teach them. The school uses its best endeavours to ensure that teachers in the school are able to identify and provide for those pupils who have inclusion needs.

External support services can play an important part in helping the school to identify, assess and make provision for pupils with additional educational needs/inclusion needs. By working with external agencies, we will be able to provide integrated, high quality, holistic support focused on the needs of the child. Such provision should be based on a shared perspective and should build wherever possible on mutual understanding and agreement. Support provided by external services should adopt a flexible child-centred approach to service delivery to ensure that the changing needs and priorities of the child and their parents can be met at any given time. The expertise of professionals from outside agencies will be used in order to further assess a child’s needs, and provide a more focused level of intervention, with specific advice being sought and put into practice.

At Acacias, we highly value the support of parents, and encourage parents to become involved in the school community. We regularly hold workshops, to support parents with helping their children at home, and informal coffee mornings. At each event we ask parents for feedback on what they enjoyed and what they'd like to see in the future. We use this feedback to plan future events and to inform us of how to improve.