About us
St Annes Park Primary School and Childrens Centre is situated in the St Annes Park area of Bristol. There are 165 children on the school roll and the Childrens Centre has 30 places for 0-3 year old children. There has been a period of very rapid change at the school along with the development of the Childrens Centre and these changes give the setting a very positive future.
The school is led and managed by the Head Teacher, Heather Forrest and the Childrens Centre, which opened in April 2006, is led and managed by Sue Cripps. These two leaders work closely together and there is a shared understanding of the vision for the whole centre. However, it is always best to go to the individual setting for information concerning places for children and on courses etc.
A number of the changes that have been made are physical and the buildings look very different now. We welcome visitors and will happily show any previous members of staff and pupils around the new facilities. Classrooms are bright and colourful and there is a very comfortable new library. Over the summer of 2007, a suspended ceiling was put into the studio and this has greatly improved the room which is now bright and friendly with better acoustics for singing.
An energetic and highly committed staff team have worked very hard over the past few years to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the school. During the year 2005-2006 the main focus was on writing and this provided some greatly improved results in the KS1 and KS2 SATs in 2006. In 2006-2007 the main focus was maths and this has showed some improvement across all the year groups athat will be continued. There was a particularly good improvement in times tables due to the popularity of the 100 club! Ask your children for more details! This year our main focus is on reading and there have already been some popular sessions at the end of the schol day in the Infant classes. Parents have attended the story telling at the end of the day with pillows and teddies and this has been very popular.
During this period staff have also worked hard to develop skills in the use of interactive whiteboards and these can be found in every class except the nursery. Many teachers now depend on these for their planning and delivery of teaching materials.
We have put a lot of time and energy into developing some services to support parents and pupils. We are proud of our Breakfast Club and After School/Holiday Club facilities and the way these have benefitted a number of our families. Both are run by a mixture of school staff (non-teaching) and local people who have trained as play workers. The school now offers full wrap around care for children and this is strongly supported by the Childrens Centre who provide the staff to enable this to happen in the Nursery class.
We are also pleased with the work the Learning Mentor/Family Link Worker has initiated in supporting parents through home/school liaison and running parent support coffee mornings. These are held regularly on Mondays at 9.00am and have a growing number of regulars as well as those who just pop in occasionally. The Children’s Centre supports this parent coffee morning by providing a creche for children of parents attending.
We have installed a cycle shed and cycle racks in the playground to enable pupils to ride to school. Those who are old enough to ride on the road are encouraged to undertake the cycling proficiency lessons that are on offer each year. We have a regular road safety programme
Our Foundation Stage has been awarded the Bristol Standard in consecutive years and works continuously for greater improvement. The Nursery has received funding to refurbish the classroom area and the school has financed the development of the Outdoor Play area. The provision is now high quality and this has opened a number of opportunities for different ways of working that support the children well. The Lead Teacher in the Children’s Centre works collaboratively with the Nursery teacher to ensure quality provision.
