Elmgrove Primary School & Nursery

Close to central Harrow, our school is situated in a quiet residential area next to Kenton Park. We are fortunate to have extensive school grounds and a wealth of resources to support our children and their families. Recent newly built facilities include bespoke music teaching and instrumental tuition rooms, a physio-therapy room for our physically disabled pupils and a food technology room. We are privileged to be one of Harrow Council’s additionally resourced primary schools for children with physical disabilities, who are fully integrated across the school.

At Elmgrove, we inspire and nurture lifelong learners through effective teaching and learning whilst at the same time providing rich and truly enjoyable experiences for our children. We expect our children to achieve high standards in all that they do; children only get one chance at education.

We are proud of our staff and children’s diverse backgrounds, and we come together with an atmosphere of respect for each other. This is accomplished by: good leadership, effective management, committed staff, governors, parents and pupils working together as a team.

At Elmgrove, children come first and our priority is to deliver high quality teaching and learning whilst at the same time providing rich and truly enjoyable learning experiences for our community of children. Everything we do as a school is to ensure that the children achieve their very best. We are deeply aware that children only get one chance at their primary education and it is our job to ensure that they all reach for the highest levels of personal achievement and development.

We want every child to be successful; to reach for success from the very first day they join us and throughout their school lives so that when they leave us, they have a love of learning for the rest of their lives.

At Elmgrove Primary School and Nursery we will strive to

• Provide a secure and stimulating environment that is conducive to all children having the opportunity to reach their full potential;
• Have regard and respect for the experiences, knowledge and cultural diversity that every child brings to school. To use this as a foundation for improving standards;
• Value the achievements of all children, both in and out of school and provide opportunities to develop self-confidence and a positive self image;
• Provide a supportive culture in which all staff are encouraged to extend, develop and share their expertise;
• Ensure that issues of equal opportunities are considered in all our work;
• Provide a curriculum based on the National Curriculum and Foundation Stage Curriculum that is broad, balanced, relevant, progressive and appropriately differentiated;
• Offer all children equal access to the curriculum and school life in the community where individual differences are appreciated, celebrated, understood and accepted;
• Encourage children to become good citizens, by developing caring attitudes and respect towards themselves, other children, adults, their school and their community;
• Recognise that children are constantly developing and ensure that the curriculum offered to them is appropriate to that development;
• Encourage each individual to take responsibility for his/her behaviour and to act as a good role model to others.

At Elmgrove Primary and Nursery we aim to provide a stimulating school environment to ensure that all children achieve their maximum potential. However, the National Curriculum does not cover all areas, and we aim to ensure that children have as wide a range of experience as possible at school. We endeavour to teach to the highest standards in ways that match each child’s own aptitude and ability. That means offering a curriculum which is broad, balanced and right for each child. Children are taught using a variety of methods, which include whole class teaching, group work and individual work. Teachers choose the most appropriate method depending on the nature of the subject and the needs of the children; we believe that each child should be properly equipped with the basic tools of learning in particular in English and numeracy. These are given a very high priority by teachers and are soundly taught.

Children’s personal qualities are equally important and we aim to help children to develop a sense of consideration and self-confidence so that they value themselves and their abilities and make a full contribution to the life of the school.

All classes from year 1 to year 6 follow the National Curriculum which includes the subjects of English, Mathematics, Science, Computing, Geography, History, Music, Art, Design and Technology, Physical Education and Religious Education. The approach we take is largely through topics or themes, so that the work the children do in different ‘subjects’ is related although additional work is often planned in Mathematics and English; more so as your child gets older. A topic usually covers a term or a half term. Teachers work together to plan the work that the children will do, so that we can ensure that children are offered more challenge as they progress through the school.