Pelham Primary School

Pelham is a very successful school, where children are at the heart of all we do. At Pelham we aim to create a secure, caring and stimulating learning environment in which everyone can develop his or her aptitudes and abilities to the full. To this end, we share a commitment to achieving the highest possible academic standards alongside the development of children as confident, caring and responsible citizens.

We aim to create classroom cultures and classroom environments that cultivate the habits and attitudes of curious, confident and independent learners. We value the process of learning and not just the product. This encourages children to see the value in the learning journey that they have taken in a lesson and recognise the progress that they have made.

There are a number of skills and attributes that we believe children need to be lifelong learners. These things can be taught, both at home and at school, and help children to develop a growth mindset. A growth mindset is when someone believes that they can get better at something if they keep on trying and learn from their mistakes. There is no such thing as fixed intelligence – this can grow through hard work, concentration and a positive attitude to learning.

A fixed mindset is when someone either believes that they can’t do something and isn’t willing to try or when someone feels they are already good enough at something and they aren’t motivated to improve.At Pelham Primary School we encourage children to develop a growth mindset towards their learning. By unlocking learning behaviours and talking the language of learning we aim to help our children develop their learning characteristics.

Through our timetabled PSHE and computing curriculum, we tackle these important issues with children in lessons. Each year group covers an age appropriate e-safety unit of work at the beginning of each academic year and children are reminded of these principles throughout the year through events such as ‘Safer Internet Day’ and ‘Anti-bullying Week’.

These issues are all covered in the sites recommended below and we strongly advise you to take some time to read and understand the areas. If you have any questions then you are welcome to contact school for advice. We do provide an annual e-safety training workshop for parents, run in the spring term. Our school internet is filtered and children are appropriately supervised during internet use. Children are taught how to search safely, effectively, respectfully & responsibly. This involves thinking about appropriate key words to use and only visiting recognised sites. They are taught what action to take if they do see something upsetting.At home this may be turning off the screen and telling an adult immediately. We also include age-appropriate lessons on copyright and plagiarism.

Pelham offers "wrap around" care for pupils through our Breakfast and After School clubs. These facilities help support our working parents and provide a friendly, relaxed environment for the children to play and meet friends before and after school.

Pelham's Board of Governors meets termly to discuss progress across the spectrum of school activities.In addition, every governor serves on at least one of the three committees: School Business, Curriculum and Personnel. These committees also meet termly and provide reports to Board meetings.Governors regularly visit the school to participate in lessons, school council meetings and PTA events.

Academic 'achievement' is measured by a combination of 'attainment' (the national curriculum standard that a child has reached) and 'progress' (the measure of improvement a child has made, relative to his/her starting point, compared to children nationally, with a similar starting point).A school’s progress scores for English reading, English writing and mathematics are calculated as its pupils’ average progress scores. This means that school level progress scores will be presented as positive and negative numbers either side of zero.

The Pupil Premium is a government initiative designed to address underlying inequalities between children who are eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) and those who are not. Schools are allocated additional funding based on the number of children receiving FSM. This also includes those children who have previously been eligible for free school meals at any point in the previous 6 years.Schools are free to spend the Pupil Premium as they see fit. However, they are accountable for how they use the funding to support pupils from low income families and other target groups. We will allocate Pupil Premium funding to support any eligible pupils the school has identified as needing additional support to achieve improved outcomes in learning and/or well-being.

At Pelham, the safety of the children in our care is paramount. We recognises our duty to ensure arrangements are in place for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and to carry out this duty through our teaching and learning, pastoral care and extended school activities. All members of the school community work together to establish and maintain a safe and stimulating environment where children feel secure, are encouraged to talk to adults they can trust and are listened to.