FEATURE
NANSLEDAN SCHOOL Vicky Dilnot (PGCE 2001–2) took over as the first Head of Nansledan School, built to serve the new Nansledan development on Duchy of Cornwall land outside Newquay, in September 2019.
Vicky welcomes The Prince of Wales to the school
A
fter a term and a half of establishing itself, winning awards for its design and welcoming a visit from HRH The Prince of Wales, the school found itself
closed to most pupils in response to the pandemic.
You completed your PGCE at Homerton in 2002. What has your career trajectory been since then?
What is different about the school from what was previously available to families in the area?
I initially did middle school training, specialising in Maths. I had previously done a psychology degree and had run activity groups for children with learning difficulties for years. I could not imagine not working with children in some capacity, and when I started teaching in primary schools, I fell in love with how creative you were able to be. After several years of teaching, I worked for Nottinghamshire Council as a Primary Strategy Consultant, and then went back to school initially as Deputy Head and then a Headteacher of a Nottinghamshire primary. We had been looking for an opportunity to move to Cornwall as a family, and it was the right time in terms of my husband’s work and our own children’s education, when I was offered the role of Head at Nansledan. It was a dream come true to lead a school from its infancy.
Operated by the Aspire Academy Trust, it is the first new-build free school in Cornwall. As a result, we had the opportunity to look afresh at what the curriculum should provide. We aim to equip the children for the jobs of the future, nurturing intelligent, employable global citizens who demonstrate social competence, a desire for learning and respect for each other and the world around them. Through the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Maths) curriculum, children are engaged in learning and research which is inquiry-based and has a purpose. A number of families who had previously chosen to homeschool their children were attracted by the curriculum. The school was built to serve Nansledan, a newly developed extension to Newquay created on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. Sustainability is at the centre of the community development, which forces us to look at everything from first principles. Is it possible for a school to be plastic-free? Can we grow our own food? This focus on environmental concerns was also a big attraction for lots of families.
Were most of the places taken by children moving into the new development, or did you have a wider catchment area? There are a huge number of houses going up and being filled with young families, but we’ve also had lots of interest from further afield. We opened with five classes last September, and quickly had to add another. We initially just had one mixed Key Stage 2 class of 31 children, but it then became apparent that there was a local shortage of Year 5/6 spaces, so we created a Year 5/6 class.
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HOMERTONIAN
