Harry Gosling Primary School

INFORMATION ABOUT HARRY GOSLING PRIMARY SCHOOL

Harry Gosling is a two-form entry school with approximately 450 pupils, from Nursery to Year 6. 82% of pupils have a language other than English as their first language and 91 % live in households where another language is spoken. 37% of pupils are entitled to FSM. 14% of pupils have SEND. 3% of pupils have an EHCP plan. There is high mobility in the school, and throughout the school year children join the school. Many of these children arrive from abroad with little or no English.

There are four things that make our school so special, and, we feel, somewhere so rewarding to work:

Our children

Our children are, quite simply, fantastic! Behaviour at Harry Gosling is excellent and the pupils enjoy coming to school and are excited by their learning. This good behaviour makes a strong contribution to their learning. Inclusion is at the heart of what we do at Harry Gosling. We include children with a wide range of abilities and needs, including those who are exceptionally able and those who have additional learning needs and EHCPs.

Our staff

We have 16 class teachers. Our Senior Leadership Team consists of a Headteacher, a Deputy Head and three Assistant Heads. We have a part-time music teacher who works with classes throughout the school, and several support teachers and HLTAs. We also have a team of Teaching Assistants who support pupils in class, midday meal supervisors, administrative and site staff. We have a number of regular volunteers, including our business partners.

Classes are arranged in phase groups, with parallel classes in adjacent rooms. Our Early Years Foundation Stage is housed in our modern extension, Phase 2 (years 1,2 and 3) are on the ground floor and Phase 3 (years 4, 5 and 6) are on the top floor. Each phase is led by a member of the Senior Leadership Team.

Our staff is a mixture of people who have worked in the school over an extended period, as well as those who are less experienced or recently appointed. Staff members are lively, friendly, supportive and committed and between them have an impressive range of skills and a great sense of humour.

The school offers excellent Continuous Professional Development for all staff in all roles. We are very much a learning community, and we are only looking for staff who are like-minded and seek to better themselves and embrace new ideas and new challenges. This is not a school to stay still in. We encourage staff to take on initiatives and to try new things. We have very high standards, and our staff is expected to be ambitious and determined to excel, both for themselves and for the children they support. We offer ITE through our London-Exeter Partnership and are part of THEP (Tower Hamlets Education Partnership).

Our community

Harry Gosling is a thriving school serving a wonderful community. We are a school committed to inclusion and respect and our ethos pervades everything we do. We have high expectations of our pupils both in terms of attainment and behaviour. We respect and welcome our community into the school.

Parents take an active interest in their children’s education, are in regular contact with teachers and give us a great deal of support and encouragement. This is a healthy partnership which the school encourages. There is also a lively and involved Governing Body, which is extremely supportive of the school.

Our vision

Everyone at Harry Gosling shares our vision for excellence. We have a clear statement of aims (which you will find on our website), and we have one simple, clear motto, shared by us all. Every day at Harry Gosling, we are all ‘Learning to shine in everything we do’. Everything that we do is underpinned by our four core values of Excellence, Teamwork, Responsibility and Equality.

We are proud of the creative approach we take to providing pupils with meaningful, exciting learning opportunities, both through our curriculum and through the pedagogical approaches we adopt. We are well provided with resources for teaching across the curriculum. We have invested considerably in creating an exciting learning space for all children, both inside and outdoors. Visits to a wide range of local venues and those which are further afield are frequently made in order to support learning across the curriculum. A range of clubs are offered to all children, so that they can develop their talents and interests. Likewise we invite visitors from such venues to the school.

You can find out more about our school by visiting our website at www.harrygoslingprimary.co.uk