Columbia Primary School

Columbia is a two form entry, community primary school in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. We admit boys and girls from the ages 3 - 11. Our intake of pupils is diverse, reflecting the multi ethnic community served by the school. Many of our children have English as their second language. This diversity provides a rich context for the school's ethos of inclusion and there is a strong emphasis on respect for every individual member. There is also a strong emphasis on creativity at Columbia: both creativity of thinking, throughout all teaching and learning, and also in the creative arts.

The Early Years Unit follows the 'Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum' and provides a play-based and experiential learning environment. The children are based in their own rooms for some parts of the day but spend most of their time engaged in self-initiated and free flow activities throughout the whole setting, including the outside play area.

Each year group follows the National Curriculum for their stage of learning and, at Columbia, we integrate this learning into cross-curricular themes to make it more meaningful and cohesive. We believe that teaching and learning should have the child at the centre and should meet their needs, their interests and enable them to achieve their full potential.

There are a wide range of enrichment activities, school visits and extra curricular activities to compliment the National Curriculum. Columbia school provides a particularly rich and creative curriculum, described as outstanding in our last OFSTED report. Although the Curriculum changes regualrly to meet the needs and interests of our pupils, we use a curriculum map as our starting point which is based around the expectations and content of the New National Curriculum as well as including our own school curriculum. There are many opportunities for children to participate and contribute to the life of the school and we encourage them to take responsibility and become active citizens of our school community, our local community and the wider world.

We aim to make teaching and learning creative, active and engaging and we do this by putting a high emphasis on: talking and thinking together, questioning, making connections, exploring possibilities and experimenting with new ideas, solving problems and looking for news olutions and possibilities. We greatly value the creative arts and use them throughout our curriculum for their own intrinsic worth and to access other areas of learning through the arts. We are proud to be an Artsmark Gold school and a Creative Partnership’s 'School of Creativity,' one of only sixty such schools in the UK.