The New North Academy

We are an exciting and vibrant school in the heart of Islington. We boast really fantastic facilities, including a purpose-built dance studio, sports and drama halls, equipped with professional sound and lighting, and a building that provides lots of space and light to support learning and working.

Our Early Years setting is designed to encourage exploration, discovery and physical development in a natural, homely space and in recent years we have further developed our large outdoor spaces to reflect the same approach. We are very aware that many children locally have limited access to green spaces, and parents too have voiced concerns around the safety of some of the local spaces, so we have worked really hard to create natural, green spaces here at New North including our Outdoor Classroom & Sensory Apple Orchard that our pupils can enjoy.

Our school is a stimulating place to learn, with an enthusiastic, committed and caring team of professionals. At New North, we are passionate about what our children CAN do, and our curriculum is built around ensuring children become: Literate and numerate; Ready, responsible and resilient learners; and Well-rounded and socially responsible.

Our school approach and ethos is built on five key values - Showing Respect, Taking Responsibility, Enabling Success, Being Fair, and Nurturing Community - which we aim to ‘live by’ in all that we do. Every member of our school team embraces the huge responsibility of preparing your child for a world we can only imagine, so that they can contribute to the world around them as successful, enquiring and confident individuals.

We want our children to be high achievers; to have a thirst for learning and motivation; to explore the world around them, but also to be fantastic citizens and kind, thoughtful, giving members of our local community.

Our aims are

• For every child to achieve exceptional outcomes by the time they are 11
• For every child to become a resilient young person who is determined, self-disciplined and confident
• For our Academy to embrace and develop an ethos which drives up standards in all aspects but does this through traditional and creative approaches, whilst retaining a sense of curiosity, enjoyment and fun

Our core values are

• Respect
• Responsibility
• Fairness

We work hard to provide children with memorable and meaningful opportunities for learning, through a curriculum that engages and challenges; high expectations and academic rigour are at its heart. We follow the National Curriculum and use this to provide a framework to the plans we make for teaching and learning.

We believe every child must master the basics of Maths and English as a vital foundation for developing knowledge and skills in other areas of the curriculum and their ultimate long-term success.

We provide an inclusive curriculum to ensure the best possible progress for all our pupils whatever their needs or abilities. These can be delivered in a range of contexts to ensure their best impact on attainment and progress. Our priority is that intervention is bespoke to individuals and has significant impact.

Pupils in Foundation Stages 1 and 2 (Nursery and Reception) are taught in accordance with the Department for Education’s early years foundation stage guidance. Topics are chosen to reflect pupil’s interests and needs.

Children in our Early Years learn through a balance of structured and playful opportunities for learning, which cover the seven areas of learning.

The prime areas consist of the following

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Communication and language
• Physical development

At New North Academy we place great value in the enriching experiences children can gain beyond the classroom. This year sees the start of an exciting new programme of activities to enrich learning experiences for children, families together and parents on their own.

Phonics is the system of learning to read by using sounds. At The New North Academy, the Read, Write Inc. programme is used to teach phonics. From Foundation Stage 2 (Reception), pupils are introduced to the first 30 sounds and taught to blend these sounds into words. Later in the Foundation Stage 2 year and into Year 1 more sounds are introduced and pupils read from books at their level daily. This continues throughout KS1 and into KS2 with daily phonic lessons and guided reading activities.

We recognise the impact of reading good quality literature to pupils and also how access to high quality texts can support their learning and developing vocabulary. We have made a heavy investment in new books this year and are also in the process of planning to redevelop our library area. Each class has a book area with attractive books that appeal to all abilities within that class and our library has books that children can take home.