“Pupils behave outstandingly well. They enjoy coming to school to learn with their friends. They feel very safe “ OFSTED 2015 Belmont Primary School Ryecroft Lane Belmont BOLTON Lancashire BL7 8AH Telephone 01204 811226 e-mail: [email protected] Headteacher: Judith Peel. www.turtonbelmont.co.uk “This is a school where senior leaders, staff and governors know pupils exceptionally well” Ofsted 2015 A message from Mrs Peel: Welcome to the Belmont School prospectus. It should give you a taste of our family ethos at Belmont Primary. In our small, school community we know our children well; and can provide a caring learning environment which caters for individual needs and interests. Situated on the edge of the West Pennine Moors, we are able to use our beautiful surroundings to the full in our Creative Curriculum. If there is anything you cannot find in the prospectus and would like to ask, please ring or email the school. You are also very welcome to visit us at Belmont. Please ring us for an appointment, and come and see for yourself what we have to offer your child. Parents who are considering sending their child to our school are welcome to arrange a visit to look round the school by telephoning the secretary on 01204 811226. Belmont Primary School Mission Statement We aim to ensure that all children realise their maximum potential in all areas of schoolwork and character development. Creating a happy school environment where children may enjoy their work and establish good attitudes towards work and leisure. 2 To ensure that all children realise their maximum potential in all areas of schoolwork and character development. To create a happy school environment, where children may enjoy their work and establish good attitudes towards work and leisure activities. To help children acquire the skills of responsibility and self- respect. To encourage children to develop the important qualities of courtesy, tolerance and consideration for others and their property. To foster links with home and other agencies so that individual needs are met and guidance given, thereby supporting learning within the school. The School will provide children with access to the National Curriculum. To offer a broad based curriculum in order to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, promote enjoyment in learning, and to provide knowledge and skills to equip students for work and leisure as active, confident and responsible members of a rapidly developing society. We aim to establish an environment within which teachers and non-teaching staff; advisory colleagues, school governors and parents can work together for the successful achievement of these aims. 3 What is special about Belmont Primary School? Small class size We are a small school, so know our children well; this means we can really cater for your child’s individual needs. High staff / child ratio in the Reception Year. We have a single year group Reception class, with an intake of 14. They are taught by a teacher and full-time teaching assistant, so we can give our children the very best start to their schooling. “Pupils’ attainment in reading, writing and mathematics has been well above average for the last five years at the end of Key Stage 1” OFSTED 2015 High standards in Literacy and Numeracy We take a whole school approach in Literacy and Numeracy to ensure that there is continuity in learning and high standards are maintained. Work is well differentiated to meet the needs of all learners, creating an ethos of challenge. The school places a high priority on the teaching of reading, using a combination of synthetic phonics and whole word approaches; these are adapted to meet the needs of individual children, as children learn in different ways. The children in our small Reception class receive individual reading programmes in their first year to ensure that they gain a good start in reading. A whole school spelling scheme feeds through the school, which meets the requirements to the New National Curriculum. Literacy is taught both as a lesson in its own right for skills such as Grammar, Punctuation and Handwriting; and also through our Creative Curriculum to develop a wide range of writing skills. At Belmont Primary School, Mathematics is taught as an independent lesson on a daily basis. We place a real emphasis on gaining the basic skills, such as mental maths and times tables. Each week we have “Challenge Friday” which helps our children learn to apply the skills they have learnt that week. 4 Maths is also implemented into our ‘Creative Curriculum’ when appropriate. For example - some of our children recently made a lovely batch of muffins for our school Macmillan Coffee morning; so this was an ideal opportunity for the children to learn and practically experience the weights and measures objectives. Our younger children integrated the learning of points of the compass and directions with the drawing of pirate treasure maps for their topic on Pirates. Active Learning We have a focus on active learning throughout the school, and particularly in Key Stage One. Using the outdoors is also an important aspect of our learning provision, both in the school grounds and in the wider country environment close to the school. This helps us to ensure children are fully engaged with learning in ways which are most appropriate for individual needs. The Arts The School has an excellent reputation for the Arts. We use performance through drama, art, dance and music to develop confidence and self-esteem in all areas of learning. In 2008, 2012 and 2018 the school has been awarded the Gold Artsmark for our creative approach and high standard of Arts at Belmont. Here is what the Arts Council said about our Arts provision: The panel was deeply impressed by your school’s use of its pupil Arts Council to inform your development of arts provision. Your range of offer, particularly given your setting, your engagement of the parental and wider community, your implementation of Arts Award and your use of the arts to inspire learning across the curriculum are just some of your outstanding achievements. In June 2018 our children participated in singing and instrumental classes at the Blackburn Music Festival. We were fortunate enough to bring back a number trophies! 5 Healthy Lifestyles We place a high value on developing healthy lifestyles at Belmont. We hold the Local Authority Recipe for Health Gold Award and follow the Dimensions Personal Social and Health Education programme to help our children develop essential life skills. We have a school garden where we grow our own produce, which is harvested by the children and prepared by them as part of our school dinners from time to time. We promote online safety and keeping ourselves safe when using the internet throughout the curriculum; we have been awarded the Safe Award for our work. We are currently working towards the 360 Mark for online safety. Looking after our environment At Belmont we pride ourselves on how we look after our school, local area and play our part in looking after planet Earth. Operation Green Team have supported our school to become more eco-friendly and have been awarded Silver Status. We also work with the National Trust in gaining the Green Tree Award; we have been awarded Bronze. Our school gardening club are working towards the Royal Horticultural Society School Gardening Awards and are currently working towards level 5. 6 Sports & Physical Education We offer a range of sports and physical activities both in curriculum time and in extra-curricular clubs. The emphasis in physical activities at Belmont is mainly placed on enjoyment and team building skills but some of our children are given the opportunity to play competitive sport when representing school at football, cricket, netball, rounders, swimming and athletics. Over the last few years we have used some of our schools Sports Grant to subsidise an after school sports club with a company called ‘Sportscool’ who run two clubs per term alternating between the key stages. Sportscool also now offer sporting activities at lunchtimes, which is enabling our children to become more active and experience a wider range of activities. We are currently also developing our provision in outdoor pursuits; we use the local rural area for orienteering and staff are have recently been trained to deliver Outdoor Trails and Challenges. Money Matters DebtAware (Money Mentors as we call it in school) is a financial education programme aimed primarily at 9-13 year olds, We use it with our year 5&6 class. DebtAware is part of Debt Advice Foundation, a registered national debt advice and education charity. The Foundation has a series of core teaching resources based around ‘The Money Diaries’, all of which were written and illustrated by school students and which form the heart of DebtAware’s money management lessons. The sessions are delivered to pupils by selected classmates known as Money Mentors with teacher support. One of the most successful aspects of the programme is this peer-to-peer delivery model. 7 Admissions to the School The Education Committee determines the age at which children can be admitted to school. At present children whose 5th birthday falls between September 1st and August 31st are admitted fulltime at the start of the Autumn Term. The policy for admissions is the Blackburn with Darwen Admissions Policy. In past years children have been allocated places using paragraph d) "Geographical Criterion". You can find more information at Blackburn Admissions or to apply online please visit Parent Portal within the Blackburn with Darwen Council website. www.blackburn.gov.uk, or see the Admissions section of our school website at www.turtonbelmont.co.uk.