Highbury Quadrant Primary School

Welcome to Highbury Quadrant Primary school. At our school we have an established leadership team that works closely with the Governing Body to realise a clear vision for Highbury Quadrant, its pupils and its community.

We are a community school where we respect one another and listen to each other. The school offers a safe yet challenging environment where everyone is empowered to recognise and reach for their potential. We work creatively to encourage every child and adult to be proud of who they are.

Our curriculum is designed to excite and stimulate pupils to learn about the world in which they live. Our pupils enjoy a creative approach to learning and personal development. From the Early Years onwards we foster strong characteristics of effective learning and learning behaviour. Children experience learning with and from each other. We aim to build on individual strengths and talents and expect all children in our school to reach the best possible standards in attainment and be ready to accept the challenge of moving on to secondary school when the time comes.

The leadership structure ensures that the best use is made of all our resources and is focused on setting high expectations and securing high standards.

The principles we live by at Highbury Quadrant are

• To respect one another and listen to each other
• To respect one another and listen to each other
• To provide a challenging and creative learning environment
• To encourage responsibility for one’s own actions
• Tto encourage every child and adult to be proud of who they are

Our Core Values

• Respect
• Achievement
• Positivity

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Through the EYFS we aim to encourage your child to become a motivated and independent learner and individual. The curriculum is delivered through the use of topics and is largely play based. Your child will be assessed through practitioner observation.

Three Prime Areas: Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Initiate conversations, attend to and take account of what others say.
• Explains own knowledge and understanding, and asks appropriate questions of others.
• Take steps to resolve conflicts with other children, e.g. finding a compromise.
• Become confident to speak to others about own needs, wants, interests and opinions.
• Describe themselves in positive terms and talk about their abilities.
• Understand that their own actions affect other people, for example, become upset or try to comfort another child when they realise they have upset them.
• Be aware of the boundaries set, and of behavioural expectations in the setting.

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. At Highbury Quadrant we use the Letters and Sounds programme to teach phonics which we supplement with resources from other schemes, such as the actions from the Jolly Phonics scheme for Phase 2.

All children from Nursery to Year 2 have a discrete daily phonics lesson. Every child moves in a structured way from the easiest sounds (phase 2) through to the most complex (phase 6). Children are taught to recognise the sounds that each letter makes, identify the sounds made by different combinations of letters and blend these sounds to make words.

During the Summer term in Year 1, children are required to sit the Phonics Screening Check to confirm whether they have made the expected progress. The children are asked to read 40 words aloud. The check will contain a mix of real words and ‘non-words’ (or ‘nonsense words’). The results of the check will be reported to parents.

All children are individuals and develop at different rates. The screening check ensures that teachers understand which children need extra help with phonic decoding. Children who have not made the expected progress receive additional phonics support and retake the check in year 2.

Highbury Quadrant like all schools in Islington, is committed to meeting the needs of all pupils including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEN).

Our expectation is that children and young people with SEN will receive an education that enables them to make progress so that they:

• Achieve their best
• Become confident individuals living fulfilling lives
• Make a successful transition into adulthood, whether into employment, further or higher education or training

We will use our best endeavours to make sure that a pupil with SEN gets the support they need – this means doing everything we can to meet the pupils special educational needs.