Harris Primary Academy East Dulwich

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Our Academy opened in September 2014 to meet significant demand from East Dulwich families for new primary places. We started with a Reception cohort and currently have children in year groups from Reception to Year 3 and will continue to grow by a year group at a time. We moved into our new building in September 2016, providing a bright and modern space for learning.

Children lie at the heart of what we do at Harris Primary East Dulwich. We are a happy, ambitious, and inclusive school, reflecting the rich diversity of families in our area. We were delighted in May 2017 when Ofsted judged us to be 'outstanding in all areas.

At Harris Primary East Dulwich, we aim to make learning irresistible, ensuring children develop a genuine, life-long, love of learning and that every child flourishes. We do this by providing the best possible education for all of our pupils. We believe that we can provide the very best opportunities for every single child in the school through our vision of ‘Achieving Success Together' which is underpinned by our ‘Keys to Success.

We pride ourselves on providing a vibrant learning environment that nurtures and supports children. We encourage our pupils to be responsible for their learning, to grow in confidence, and become independent. The Philosophy for Children (P4C) program is a key feature of our school and the work that we do to prepare our children for their rights and responsibilities as global citizens. In recognition of our work in this area, we were awarded Level 1 of UNICEF's Rights Respecting School Award in July 2017. We offer an exciting and engaging creative curriculum where teachers and pupils work together to ensure high-quality learning experiences that enable every pupil to achieve their very best.

Harris Federation works together at Harris Primary East Dulwich in a culture of collaboration and support, committed to providing a calm and stimulating environment. Mutual respect amongst and between adults and children is an integral part of our culture, where everyone is valued. We believe that these things all contribute to the warm and welcoming atmosphere, which so many visitors comment on when coming to Harris Primary East Dulwich.

Working with parents/carers is an essential prerequisite to helping us achieve our aims as we believe that good strong partnerships, coupled with quality teaching and learning and high expectations at all times, will undoubtedly help children achieve their very best, lead to great achievements, promote good citizenship and prepare pupils well for the next stages of their lives.

Our mission of 'Achieving Success Together encapsulates our determination to provide an outstanding education for every child, regardless of ability, background, or culture. At Harris Primary Academy East Dulwich we have high aspirations and ambitions for our children and there is a driving determination to ensure that all pupils reach their full potential. Our core purpose is to provide all pupils with high-quality learning experiences that lead to high levels of progress and attainment.

Our values at Harris Primary Academy are encapsulated in our 'Keys to Success, which in turn encapsulates the key qualities and behaviors we develop in Harris Primary Academy East Dulwich children, which will not only create a happy school with good relationships and effective learning but will also prepare them for adult life. These are:

• Determination
• Respect
• Integrity
• Responsibility
• Community Spiritedness
• Curiosity
• Self-control
• Conscientiousness

Our children are taught in line with the expectations that are set out in the National Curriculum. English, Mathematics, R.E., Music, and P.E. are generally taught as discrete subjects. All the remaining subjects are taught through our thematic curriculum, which is a stimulating topic-based approach to learning. In addition to this, children are taught Mandarin as a Modern Foreign Language alongside furthering their Spanish learning from last year.

Our thematic curriculum has been designed to ensure rigorous learning of knowledge and the development of skills which has been mapped to the 2014 National Curriculum to ensure comprehensive coverage of national expectations. It is delivered through half-termly Imaginative Learning Projects which provide a rich menu of exciting and motivating learning activities that make creative links between all aspects of our children’s learning.

At Harris Primary Academy East Dulwich, we support our pupils to develop the character attributes, traits, and behaviors that we believe will help to underpin success in school and beyond, both now and in their future lives. We call these the East Dulwich Keys to Success and we believe these are the ‘keys to unlocking future success. At HPAD we have agreed on a set of character attributes or ‘keys’, and the focus on developing these in our pupils is at the core of our ethos at Harris Primary Academy East Dulwich – it underpins everything we do from our curriculum to our approach to behavior management.

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