Rosemary Works School

Rosemary Works School is an independent co-educational primary school, with a pre-school nursery class, taking children from the age of 3 to 11 years old. Open from 8am to 6pm 49 weeks per year, our term-time education is supplemented with excellent Out of School clubs and a holiday playscheme. We are a private, fee-paying school – sometimes referred to as a preparatory, or prep school.

We are non-selective at entry yet our children achieve the highest level of academic attainment at all years up to 11+. We have an excellent track record in helping our pupils achieve success in their applications for selective secondary schools.

Our unique Independent primary school located on the Islington & Hackney border takes a different approach to teaching and learning.So when we work with our children, we promote transferable skills, the ability to time-manage, independent thought and a sense of how important each and every individual is, which makes for a well-rounded, happy child – essential for growth.

We are a preparatory school where our innovative and interesting curriculum is designed to capture the imagination, and allow the children to thrive academically. We also emphasise the development of the children’s non-cognitive skills, such as motivation, resilience, persistence, and understanding the value of making mistakes. This way the children can develop their independence, self discipline, self respect and respect for others in a secure environment where getting things wrong is not a failure, but a part of the process of learning. Rosemary Works is a place where your child can develop qualities of empathy and personal responsibility.

We strongly believe that children learn best in a secure and loving environment, where they feel part of a community, and know everyone around them. A warm, caring and affectionate approach informs every child’s education with us. We do not believe that this nurturing climate should be confined to nursery and infant school.

We want the children to be inspired by their teachers, and we believe that this comes about when teachers are happy in their roles and where they feel that they can explore their own interests with the children. So our teachers are free to plan the children’s learning with maximum flexibility, inventiveness and spontaneity. They collaborate with the Head Teacher, and with each other, to deliver a rich and stimulating curriculum.

We want the children to be healthy. Each week the children have swimming lessons, plus two PE lessons, in addition to the many opportunities for physical workouts at playtime. Our vegetarian/fish menu is nutritious and tasty. We adhere to healthy eating guidance, and we make it all from scratch in our own kitchen, so there no hidden ‘nasties’ – our food is additive free.

The PN was established to provide a forum to represent parents. We work collaboratively with the school owners to identify growth and improvement opportunities and to represent the general views of parents as a whole. This can be on anything from school dinners to playground safety.The PN is run by a collective of parents who devote time and energy voluntarily to make the school an even better place for our children to thrive. The PN also raises funds to provide additional resources and experiences for our children to enjoy during their school life. Funds are raised through social events and every now and then we might ask for voluntary donations to help support a number of specific projects. Currently we are looking to provide equipment for extra curricular activities that help boost creativity and dexterity, this might take the form of sewing machines and block printing. We are also looking into supporting a school in a developing country so our children learn what it is like to grow up in a totally different culture and can learn and grown with children of their own age on the other side of the world.

We aim to only provide financial support for initiatives the PN consider to be above and beyond the necessary requirements for education provision. To qualify, initiatives should clearly be seen to significantly enrich learning and leisure experiences for all children in the school. Each year we try to have a different focus. The PN will generally look to match fund investments made by the school, however at the PN’s discretion, full funding (or a higher level of part funding) for initiatives would be considered acceptable.

We organise and run many social events, such as the Spring family day, Summer Fete and various other smaller events throughout the year such as cake bakes, a winter party and a regular after school disco. The aim of these events is to provide a little extra fun for the children and enable parents from across the year groups to get to know each other.The PN is an open forum and welcomes involvement from all parents within the school. There are no elections for representation, we rely on volunteers. What we try to achieve each year in terms of representation is to ensure we have two parents from each year group. If you’d like to get involved either as a class representative or in events organisation please ask Rob or grab us in the playground.