Southwold works in close partnership with two other Hackney schools in a Hard Federation arrangement. This means that we share the same vision and aspiration that children deserve the best and work closely together to develop our curriculum, teaching, and community values together. We share a single Governing body and work under the title Viridis Schools with our Executive Headteacher working to secure working partnerships across and beyond our three schools.
We have full & part-time places in our well-equipped Nursery classes run by experienced, fully qualified teachers and Nursery Education Officers. We offer an outstanding provision for our children with well-resourced classrooms a warm friendly team of teachers and staff. Children can start Southwold Nursery in the school term following their third birthday. Coming to our nursery setting will allow your child to develop their social skills and begin to make new friends in a safe, educational, play-based setting which is run by qualified professionals. This is an important stage as it supports your child to develop and gain the skills needed for future learning including basic counting/number recognition, enjoyment of stories, phonics, social skills, and physical developmental play. Southwold Nursery is both part-time and full-time. We have 20 full-time and 12 part-time places available. If all the full-time places are not taken up, additional part-time places will be offered. If there are still vacancies remaining, parents with part-time places can ask to top up the part-time entitlement to a full-time place for which there will be a charge.
All three schools achieve above national averages at the end of KS2 and have many examples of excellent practice which we happily share in partnership work with other schools outside of our organization. If you would like to visit or have a particular area of school development you would like to explore with us we would be happy to help, please contact the Executive Headteacher Stephen Hall in the first instance via any one of the school offices.
The safety of our pupils at Southwold is of paramount importance to us. We believe in supporting parents to keep children safe in all aspects of their life, especially online. The best way to keep children safe online is to be armed with information so please use the links below to find out all you can to help protect your child at home when using the Internet.
The school runs a range of sporting and educational after-school clubs run by professional coaches and mentors which are changed every term. We also run the Literacy and Maths Booster Club to support pupils in Year 6 in preparation for SATs. In addition to this, a child-care After School Club runs from 3:30 to 6:00 pm every day on-site for working parents.
The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most.
At Southwold Primary School we offer a curriculum that is broad and balanced to ensure every child reaches their full potential and has access to a range of educational experiences whatever their starting points or circumstance. The curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum 2014. Pupils at Southwold are provided with a clear progression of opportunity to engage with and be part of, a rich, varied, and comprehensive curriculum that reflects the interests of the school, its staff, pupils, parents, and the wider national and global communities. Although literacy and mathematics are planned for discreetly in weekly plans, many topic areas are relevant in these lessons, particularly through the choice of texts and writing outcomes in literacy. The whole school approaches to reading support quality teaching and learning.
Specialist teachers support the teaching of music, Modern Foreign Languages, Physical Education, and the creative curriculum. Subject leaders are allowed to develop their subject knowledge, skills, and understanding so they can support curriculum development in the subjects they lead. Theme weeks, trips, and opportunities to engage in workshops within and outside school enrich and develop the children’s learning.
The spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development of our pupils and their understanding of the core values of our society are woven through the curriculum. We set high expectations for every pupil. We aim to stretch the ablest pupils by planning suitable and relevant learning challenges but also plan carefully for the needs of pupils who belong to vulnerable groups including ensuring that the needs of pupils with SEND are fully met. Developing independent, resilient, inspired and motivated life-long learners with a sense of responsibility as future citizens is at the heart of all of our teaching and learning.
The school pays full regard to DfES guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ April 2014. We ensure that all appropriate measures are applied to everyone who works in the school who is likely to be perceived by the children as a safe and trustworthy adult including e.g. volunteers and staff employed by contractors. Safer recruitment practice includes scrutinizing applicants, verifying identity and academic or vocational qualifications, obtaining professional and character references, checking previous employment history, and ensuring that a candidate has the health and physical capacity for the job. It also includes undertaking interviews and, where appropriate, ISA and Criminal Records Bureau checks.
