Who are we?
Bygrove is a one-form entry primary school with a distinctive character. Staff & pupils are ambitious & confident – performance at KS2 shows our pupils consistently outperform their national peers & make significantly more progress – and yet we are small enough to feel like a big family. Our pupils are at the heart of everything we do. They are happy, friendly & well-behaved & they love learning. Everyone here feels like they belong and it’s this that gives us the platform to succeed.
In short, what defines us is our:
- High achievement for all pupils
- Rich, vibrant curriculum
- Evidence informed practice
- Inclusive culture
- Family feel
- Excellent professional learning opportunities for staff
- Bespoke leadership development programme
- Quality partnerships
This is the school's vision statement
To all the pupils at Bygrove Primary School,
Every day at Bygrove Primary School, the staff and governors are working to make sure that by the time you leave us:
- You will love learning new things, feel ready of the future & want to keep on learning more
- You will know what it feels like to be good at something & have achieved your very best
- You will understand just how incredible you are, believe in yourself and have confidence & resilience to follow your dreams
- You will have grown healthy and strong and understand how to look after your body and mind
- You will have known friendship and learned how to get along well with other people
- You will feel part of your community and proud of your school & inspired to make a difference
A melting pot
Bygrove is a multi-faith, multi-cultural, multi-lingual school, with pupils and staff hailing from nearly 20 different countries & practicing many faiths, the majority being Muslim. This has a very positive impact on the school; we feel extraordinarily lucky to be so diverse. We recognise just how much we can learn from one another & ultimately just how similar we all are.
School-based training & staff development
Professional development is a priority for all of our staff, whatever their role. We have, for example:
- Outstanding initial teacher training provision with the LETTA SCITT
- ECT programmes for early career teachers for the first 2 years of their teaching
- Accredited training for mentors
- Apprenticeship & Kickstart opportunities in a variety of roles
- NPQLTD, NPQLT & NPQH for leaders and ongoing bespoke leadership development training from external consultants
- Weekly training for teaching assistants
- Two leaders who are completing a masters degree in Education Leadership
Significant partnerships
We could not achieve the things we do on our own. So building & maintaining a variety of strong partnerships has always been a priority. We:
- Are members of the Poplar Partnership group of schools with & through whom we work on areas such as Assessment for Learning, transition & parental engagement. The Poplar Partnership pioneered shared services employing, for example, 2 full-time social workers & a school health advisor across the partnership
- Enjoy a particularly strong partnership with another local school, Stebon Primary School, with whom we have joined to form a multi-academy trust – the LETTA Trust. Teachers from the two schools plan & design curriculum delivery together, making the best use of each other’s strengths & expertise. We also deliver economies of scale by attending much of our staff training together
- Are founder members of the Tower Hamlets Education Partnership
- Play a key role in The East London Teaching School Hub for whom we provide CPD facilitation & Initial Teacher Training
- Work closely with the Bow Arts Trust on creative projects, particularly at KS2
- Have worked with Citi-Group & Morgan Stanley to develop a bespoke, flexible volunteering package enabling employees to volunteer at Bygrove in all sorts of ways
- Always develop strong partnerships with parents through regular meetings & events, encouraging carers to become increasingly involved in the life of the school
- A healthy school
We understand that learning how to look after our bodies & minds is one of the most important things we can do at primary school. We have:
- A specialist PE & sports teacher who teaches all the children in the school & supports the professional development of teaching staff in PE
- Achieved numerous awards, including School Games Gold
- Philosophy for Children, Restorative Justice, & PSHE as key elements of our curriculum
- A range of fruit daily for pupils in the Early Years & KS1 as well as milk & water
- Actively promoted physical activity during break times; lunchtime sessions of basketball, skipping, etc & training for midday supervisors in supporting games in the playground
- 2 hours of PE a week in which sports such as football, netball, cricket, hockey, dance & gymnastics are rotated on a termly basis; swimming lessons from Y4 up to Y6
We encourage children to start their day in the healthiest possible way, by getting exercise on their journey to school. The children are welcome to walk, cycle or scooter to school.
Awards
- Investors in People Platinum Award
- Inclusion Quality Mark – Flagship School
- School Games Gold
- Sapere Philosophy for Children (P4C) Bronze
- STARS Sustainable Travel Accredited Gold
