St Mark's CofE Primary School Prospectus

PROSPECTUS 2016 PROSpECTUs 1

WELCO Our huge playground with the Kia Oval in the background

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OMe We welcome your interest in St Mark’s Church of England Primary School.

We are a small, one-form entry Church of England Primary School in the heart of Oval.

Our diverse intake reflects the local area and the school maintains the feel of a welcoming, close-knit family. Our ethos is enshrined in Christian values, helping to create a warm, caring environment, where children feel safe, valued and in which they can thrive in all areas of their development.

Our size enables us to nurture each child throughout the whole school, building upon the knowledge we have of our children and the strong partnership that we have with parents.

Our determination is to meet the needs of all children at the school and to further develop the high attainment and progress we have sustained during the last three years, in the core subjects from Reception through to the end of Key Stage 2.

Your child has the opportunity to truly flourish during their time at St Mark’s. With our broad, inspirational curriculum, we can ensure high quality teaching, rigorous academic challenges and exciting and memorable learning experiences.

We have extensive playground space and equipment, a wildlife and pond area and a new edible garden, which we use to enrich children’s learning across the curriculum.

Please feel free to contact the school and arrange a visit. We look forward to meeting you and welcoming you into the St Mark’s family.

Mr Sola Ingram, Head Teacher

CoNTents

Vision, Mission and Values Our Partnerships with the Local Community Progress and Standards Our new Nursery Trips, Visits and School Journeys Parental Engagement Pupil Leadership Early Years English Mathematics Science ReligioUS EDUCATION and Worship Art and Design & Design and Technology Computing Physical Education and Sport Music History Geography Outdoor learning

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St Mark's C of E Primary School Harleyford Road, Kennington, London, SE11 5SL Phone: 0207 735 1467 Email: admin@st-markscofe.lambeth.sch.uk Web: www.stmarkscofeprimarylambeth.co.uk

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Vision, Mission and Values

Our visION

oUR MisSIon

Our vision statement outlines what we strive to achieve for our pupils by the time they leave St Mark’s in Year 6. We want St Mark’s to be: ‘A school where children develop: the passion to learn; the skills to succeed and the confidence to take Christian values into our diverse society.’

We want children who leave St Mark’s to have an on-going love for learning. We also want them to possess a range of skills so they can function effectively in all areas of life. Skills such as being able to: communicate effectively, listen to others, empathise, debate, resolve incidents and conflicts, respond to advice, respond to setbacks, problems and disappointments and interpret information. Such skills are crucial for children’s future success.

We also want children from St Mark’s to be guided by our Core Christian Values of Compassion, Hard work, Accountability, Respect and Trust, in addition to Joy, Peace, Kindness, Self-Control and Forgiveness.

Our mission statement states how we, as a school, will work together in partnership with our parents to achieve the aims set out in our vision statement. We are committed to ensuring: • Children are intellectually challenged through high standards of teaching and learning • Children develop spiritually, morally, socially and culturally.

• Children think for themselves, develop enquiring minds and become independent, reflective individuals.

• Children are able to engage and work collaboratively with a wide range of people and develop mutual respect.

• The school works in partnership with local organisations and schools in order to develop wider skills, knowledge and experiences • Children learn within a safe, stimulating learning environment in which outstanding learning takes place.

• We offer an enriched and inspirational curriculum in which pupils actively participate in a broad range of meaningful learning experiences.

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Our Partnerships within the local community 7

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LocAl grOups and organisatIŌNs 1 St Mark's is perfectly located in the middle of Oval, Kennington and Vauxhall and due to this convenient location we have well established relationships with local organisations. These include: 2 Kia Oval, 3 the Ovalhouse Theatre, 4 Oval Tube Station, 5 St Mark’s Church, 6 Vauxhall City Farm and 7 Into University. All of these partnerships significantly contribute towards the educational experiences of children at St Mark’s.

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PrOGRESs aNd StAnDaRdS

St Mark’s has been able to sustain high standards throughout the past three years across Reception, Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 2. Our outcomes are consistently in line with national expectations and pupils make good progress across the school. Our most recent end of key stage performance shows that the level of children exceeding expectations for reading, writing and maths has increased across Key Stages 1 and 2.

Whilst we place a high focus on attainment and progress across the core curriculum, we are equally interested in children making progress across all areas of the curriculum and we assess and monitor how well they are doing in Art and DT, Geography and History, RE, PE and Music to ensure children are making all round progress.

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OuR New Scho0l nursery

We are very pleased and excited to announce that a new Nursery Unit, offering up to 30 Nursery places for 3-4 year olds, opened at St Mark’s in September 2017.

Our Early Years curriculum is child-centred and caters for the individual needs and interests of each child. Our staffing expertise and school grounds enable us to provide children with opportunities to

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engage in inspirational and stimulating learning experiences which develops and promotes their creativity, social relationships, communication and allround learning. A strong emphasis is placed on outdoor learning and forest school; the teaching of languages and music, as well as securing the fundamentals of reading, writing and maths.Â

Trips, visits and SChool journeys We are a very active school and always look to provide real, hands on learning experiences to provide a context for pupils and fully immerse them in what they are learning. We invite visitors to speak to the children and provide children with opportunities to participate in workshops and create launch and landing events to begin and end topics. Each half term, many classes will go out on a trip linked to the areas they are learning about.

From opposite: Gardening in the Early Years, residential trip to Rock UK, school trip to London Docklands; camping at Walhampton Prep school; residential trip to CYE sailing centre.

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"This is a smiley school, there are lots of smiles."

Patricia, year 6

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parENtal EnGagement

"My son’s class teacher has been amazing!"

"Children are taught to respect people from different backgrounds, races and religions."

"Queries are always dealt with by friendly helpful staff. My views are taken into account. The children participate in a lot of external events."

"My children have made great progress as a result of the excellent teaching."

We are fortunate to have a very supportive and active body of parents across the school, who are fully involved in the life of St Mark’s. They hear pupils read, accompany groups on school trips and help to co-ordinate whole school events.

We regularly run well supported parent workshops and respond to parental feedback, which we gather regularly.

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"The staff communicate well with the children and the parents."

Pupil Leadership

We have a well established school monitor system, which provides children with opportunities to play an active role in all areas of the school and develop leadership through taking ownership for their school.

School monitor roles enable students to take responsibility for: the edible playground, collective worship, reducing waste across the school, organising playground games, supporting children in the playground by resolving minor disputes and proof-reading the school newsletters.

In addition to our monitor positions, we have an active, democratically elected school council who are involved in some of the strategic leadership decisions within the school. Amongst other things, they have been

instrumental in the establishment of the school monitor positions; purchased equipment for the playground and led on an initiative to improve the school’s attendance and punctuality. They were also instrumental in the design of the new school playground.

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"I love the new playground equipment."

Raphael, year 5

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"I like counting and singing."

Derek, year 1

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Early Years

From left to right: children keeping an eye on the ducklings that hatched within the class; water play and role play; an awe and wonder moment; finding out about gadgets and playing with friends.

At St Mark’s we aim to provide our children with the very best start to their learning journey. We believe that children learn in a rich, safe and stimulating environment with caring adults, who are dedicated to children’s well-being and individuality. We are committed to each child making progress through play-based learning and through the use of teacher led, focused activities linked to their interests.

We provide a wide range of interesting activities so that children are encouraged to become active, independent learners, who are willing to explore and engage in a variety of experiences. There is a strong emphasis on the teaching of phonics and reading ; writing and number, as well planning for stimulating experiences and topics that inspire children’s all-round development across all aspects of the Early Years Curriculum. We provide our children with opportunities to learn in both indoor and outdoor environments. Children’s outdoor learning will be further enhanced through our Forest School trained staff and our expansive outdoor learning environment.

We work very closely with our parents and carers, as we recognise their important influence in supporting their child’s learning, well-being and all-round development.

Rapid progress has been made within our Early Years setting. Since our last Ofsted Inspection in 2015, we have employed experienced EYFS staff, expanded the outdoor space, purchased all-weather surfacing, introduced a school nursery and invested in new resources. As a result, outcomes during the past two years have significantly increased by 10% to being in line with national expectations, but more importantly, children are happy and fully prepared for their next stage of learning in Key Stage 1.

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" I like playing with the blocks" Ryan, year 1

Building structures- Early Years STEM!

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ENGLISH Our English curriculum is based around exposing children to a range of high quality literature written by significant children’s authors. This not only enriches their lives and exposes them to our rich literary heritage, but challenges and inspires them to become critical readers, thinkers and writers.

Reading Daily reading opportunities provide children with opportunities to read for pleasure and discover the joy of reading, which will enable them to become lifelong readers. It also enables them to develop the skills of locating information, develop their reading fluency and reading comprehension; improve their vocabulary and their ability to read and recognise known and unknown words.

Writing Within writing sessions, emphasis is placed upon children achieving excellent writing outcomes. Our primary focus is on teaching children to become exciting, captivating writers who are aware that their written work is to be read and enjoyed by an audience. We do this through using high quality texts and quality first teaching. Within this context high importance is placed upon accurate spelling, punctuation, grammar and high standards of handwriting.

Speaking and listening Across the school curriculum, children are provided with opportunities to develop their spoken control of English through listening to others, engaging in discussions and debates, by giving presentations to the class and through explaining their ideas clearly.

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From left to right: high quality writing; reading for pleasure in class, in the school library and in reading areas across the school and examples of writing.

"The exciting books that we use in English help me to develop my ideas and imagination, then to express myself in my writing."

Gracie, year 6

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"I enjoy working systematically and following steps to work out problems."

Gahie, year 5

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MaTHEmatICS

Children engrossed in their maths learning and working effectively with their peers and adults.

Mathematics is an essential part of our everyday lives and maths teaching at St Mark’s is exciting and challenging. We foster a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject and encourage pupils to become confident mathematicians. We achieve this through placing an emphasis on children becoming fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics.

CURriculUm Our Maths Curriculum ensures pupils: • Explore Maths in all areas of the curriculum and aspects of life • Enjoy Maths and become resilient and enthusiastic problem solvers, developing their knowledge and understanding at greater depth • Become skilled at checking and explaining their answers using the appropriate mathematical language • Develop speed at recalling and applying key facts • Using practical resources to support teaching and learning of Mathematics.

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"The best thing about St Mark’s is the teachers. They are so kind and help us with our learning."

Maria Clara, year 6

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scIEnCe "Science helps me to understand the world" Louie, year 6

We aim to provide a high-quality science education which provides the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics. All pupils are taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science.

CUrRiculUm Through our science curriculum we help children to: • develop scientific knowledge and conceptual understanding through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics • develop understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science through different types of science enquiries that help them to answer scientific questions about the world around them • be equipped with the scientific knowledge required to understand the uses and implications of science, today and for the future • Our links with UCL and neighbouring secondary schools enables us to expose children to a broad range of experiences and opportunities across the STEM subjects.

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From left to right: work on light; making predictions; carrying out an investigation into air resistance and understanding the circulatory system.

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REL¡GIoUS EdUCATION anD WOrSHiP Religious Education

From left to right: Children creating a values banner, a child’s reflection from their class reflection area; a weekly assembly with Reverend Steve, our chair of governors and Vicar of St Mark’s Church; children creating recipes for our school values; full engagement during one of our collective worship assemblies and children visiting St Mark’s Church during one of our special occasions.

Religious Education has a high priority at St Mark’s. As a Church of England school, we believe that it is important that children have a full understanding of the Christian faith and an awareness and respect for different world faiths. During our RE lessons and across aspects of the curriculum, children are provided with opportunities to experience awe and wonder, faith and belief and examine the feelings and emotions of characters. They will also have opportunities to reflect on some of the deeper issues of life and express their own views, thoughts and beliefs, to help to develop their spiritual awareness.

Collective Worship Our daily act of collective worship is an important part of the school day, when we gather together to explore important spiritual themes and consider our Christian values in greater depth. It is led by different people in our local and school community, including the vicar of St Mark’s and our Chair of Governors Reverend Stephen Coulson, who leads collective worship each week. Our children always play a lead role in collective worship through regular class collective worship assemblies and by being responsible for preparing the hall and offering prayers. These special times also provide all members of our school community with opportunities to reflect upon the things they have heard and to pray.

The whole school attends the parish church at important times throughout the year to gather together and remember significant events in the church calendar.

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art and Design & design and technology We are very keen to develop children’s creativity and artistic flair at St Mark’s and each term children are provided with opportunities to experiment with materials, textures, patterns, shapes and forms within their own art and design work.

Our topic based approach to teaching Art and Design enables children to investigate the work of other artists and use it as a basis to develop their own skills and ideas.

Using their own observations, experiences and imagination, children make, test and evaluate their own products.

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From below to right: Aboriginal art experimentation; collages from a ‘Freedom’ topic; the making of a class values banner; creative work inspired by a Gainsborough painting and work inspired by Henri Matisse.

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"I like computing because computers help to make the world a better place�

Hamzah, year 1

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Children using laptops to play educational games and develop their coding skills.

COMPUTING

Our Computing curriculum enables us to introduce children to higher order thinking skills and challenges through fun and exciting games and activities. Each class participate in weekly coding lessons from Year 1 upwards, using our brand new computer hardware.

Weekly computer coding clubs are run for both key stages 1 and 2 and e-safety workshops are run throughout the year for all children and parents. Our partnership with the London Connected Learning Centre, provides children with opportunities to explore and use the latest computing technology and explore important aspects of e-safety.

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PHYSICAL EdUCaTION aNd SpORt Our PE curriculum provides children with the opportunity to develop their physical skills, competitive values and understanding of healthy lifestyles.

Children across the school participate in two PE sessions each week, which cover dance, competitive sports, athletics and gymnastics. Children across Key stage 2 participate in swimming lessons each year for a term to help them to achieve their aim of swimming 25 metres before they leave primary school. We use our sports grant to employ specialist PE and gymnastics coaches which means our provision is of the highest quality.

Competitive Sports Children are provided with regular opportunities to participate in competitions against other schools across Lambeth and apply their sporting skills in competitive situations. As well as encouraging strong, competitive performance, we place emphasis upon the attitudes and values that they should display when competing against others. Although we are a small school, we always give a good account of ourselves and have even won trophies.

Our challenge is to give every child within the school an opportunity to represent the school before they leave.

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From left to right: children involved in Cricket, gymnastics, taekwondo, netball, football, basketball, and athletics, during their weekly PE lessons.

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"The best thing about St Mark’s is the school community. It is diverse and children are encouraged to be who they want to be."

Jacob, year 6

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African dance with Emmanuel the Magnificent during Black History events

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"We get lots of opportunities to learn different instruments and we are not restricted, we can choose which instruments we want to learn."

Ayla, year 5

From left to right: children learning how to play a range of different instruments during their weekly music lessons and below a class performing for parents during an end of term concert.

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MUSIC

Our Music provision is wide ranging and extremely rich here at St Mark’s. Children have daily opportunities to sing during collective worship. Children in the Early Years, Year 1 and Year 2 enjoy a weekly music session from musictrax, our music providers, which helps them to develop their musical ideas and awareness and prepares them to learn a musical instrument later on in their lives. Across Key stage 2, children learn how to play the recorder, xylophone and djembe drums in Years 3 and 4, before progressing onto learning the Cello and violin in Years 5 and 6.

Performing In addition to this, all children across the school are provided with opportunities to perform their musical skills to live audiences at different points during the year; take graded exams and compete for music medals. Our school participates at the Lambeth Music festival and at other events across London. Children across the school are also provided with opportunities to enjoy and experience live musical performances.

Recent established links with the Oval and Vauxhall tube stations see our young musicians perform to raise money for charity during the Christmas period.

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"There is always lots to do during our playtimes�

Raphael, year 5

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HUMaNITiES

history "History helps me to find out about the past and about things that have helped to develop this country."

Ainhoa, year 6

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Researching the lives of significant individuals who have had an impact in history.

We strive to bring history to life through using creative and inspirational strategies that will help to make our pupils curious about the past and enable them to understand the history of Britain and the wider world. Exciting themes and topics are used as a context for children to develop their historical understanding, knowledge and skills. This includes understanding historical terms and concepts, examining the causes and consequences of events, identifying similarities and differences, exploring what historical evidence tells us about the past and making connections and contrast about the past. We strongly promote role play, inviting visitors into the school and using school trips to promote our learning about history.

Geography Through the teaching of geography at St Mark’s, we aim to inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Our curriculum provides children with the opportunity to gain knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.

This in turn will deepen their understanding of the interaction between

Children finding out about Britain as an island using maps.

physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Across the key stages, they will develop the geographical skills needed to: collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes. They also interpret a range of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes; and communicate geographical information in a variety of ways.

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oUTd0OR LEarNInG "At St Mark's Mark’s we get to have fun and learn at the same time."

Ifedayo, year 6

At St Mark’s, we view outdoor learning as a excellent way to enhance our science and DT curriculum coverage, promote children’s health, fitness and mental well-being and stimulate learning across a range of subjects.

We are blessed with a huge outdoor area which includes a playground space, ball court, a wildlife garden and a pond. During the past few months, we have added an Edible Playground, which not only provides children with a space to grow produce, but also provides them with a quiet space to use during playtimes. We have also purchased new play and fitness equipment to help children to remain active during break times.

During the coming year, we hope to introduce canopies and shelters across the school, build a new portacabin for our music lessons and also create a new, all-weather sports pitch.

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From left to right: children sowing seeds within the edible playground; children taking part in forest school session; children visiting Vauxhall city farm and children actively involved in our wildlife garden.

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St Mark's C of E Primary School Harleyford Road, Kennington, London, SE11 5SL Phone: 0207 735 1467 Email: admin@st-markscofe.lambeth.sch.uk Web: www.stmarkscofeprimarylambeth.co.uk

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