Welcome

Thank you for taking the time to look through our prospectus, I hope you find it informative and provides the guidance and support in formulating a picture of our schools, Hanburys Farm and Oakhill Primary Schools. We became a Federation five years ago and have never looked back, the future is bright and both schools have recently received ‘Good’ Ofsted reports, giving us further scope to provide and proceed with the many creative adventures we already have in place and new ones we have on the drawing board!!

We pride ourselves on ensuring all pupils meet their full potential and to those ends, we believe all pupils should be highly competent in the core skills of reading, writing and mathematics as these are crucial for the next stage of learning in all Key Stages. We make learning fun and interesting because without those magic ingredients, pupils learning can become arduous and not the learning board for lifelong learning we hope for, the strong forest schools programme is fantastic for feeding pupils imagination, getting mucky hands and observing frogs, that’s without the den building which everyone loves.

We have high levels of stability in both schools and staff are very supportive of our vision and build on it every day through outstanding practice and commitment to pupils learning, we’ve very lucky to have them and pupils education and welfare is always high priority.

The Importance of Reading

At Hanburys Farm School, we believe reading is an extremely important skill which will enable all of our children to become successful learners.

Our aims are:

• that children will be taught the essential skills  of reading
• will enjoy a wide variety of texts including fiction, non-fiction and poetry
• will become independent readers and transfer these skills across the curriculum
• will be prepared for their next stage of education
• and will become critical, life-long readers and learners.

Mathematics

We all value and appreciate the importance of maths to help children conquer a skill, which is integral to their life success. All of our teachers use concrete, pictorial and abstract methods to engage every type of learner and ensure all children can show their full potential. We work to make maths enjoyable for all to cover the entire mathematics curriculum. Although, we teach mathematics skills we also value the importance of problem solving to reason and explain. This enables all children to gain a clearer understanding of the maths methods. We have our own maths heroes, which were designed by one of our current Year 6 pupils to integrate and teach different problem solving strategies. We have; Agent Act it Our, Doctor Doodle, Trial it Tim and Improve it Eric, Robin Reverse, Professor Pattern, Organised Olive, Lieutenant Logical and Captain Conjecture.

We complete mental maths tests weekly as well as three Rockstar sessions to help with our fluency of mental calculation and times tables. Children are also encouraged to use their knowledge of mathematics throughout other curriculum subjects so that it is clearly embedded in all areas of learning.

Healthy Living in our school

Our school believes that physical education, experienced in a safe and supportive environment, is a unique and vital contributor to a pupil’s physical development and well-being.  We aim to promote and foster an enjoyment and appreciation of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle as well as supporting the children in their development of team building skills.

Children participate in a range of activities across the year, receiving a broad and balanced curriculum which teaches balance, control, coordination and stamina and which build on skills year upon year.  Different skills and sports are taught each term and throughout each year group. All PE lessons are designed to deliver vigorous activity and to improve fitness.  We employ highly trained staff to deliver PE and sport to a high standard for all children.