Goldstone Primary School

We are always happy to show prospective parents around our school so please contact us if you would like to arrange a visit.  Throughout the Autumn term we arrange group visits for parents and these occur both during the day.  Please contact the office to book a place on one of our group visits.  Our admissions policy can be found on our Admissions Page & our Policies Page. 

We were last inspected in January 2018 and were very pleased with the subsequent report.  You can read a copy of the report here. We believe that the school is going from strength to strength whilst retaining its central ethos and supportive environment.

Keystage Two Data 2016/2017

Attainment (the actual results achieved by the children)

Expected and above indicates the percentage of children who reached at least the expected standard for children in year six.
Greater depth indicates the percentage of children who achieved the higher standard.
The combined figures indicate the percentage of children who reached the standard in all three of the subjects indicated

Average Scaled Scores- This is the average scaled score achieve across the year group. The mark required to achieve the expected standard is 100.  The score required to reach the greater depth threshold is 110.

Progress (The progress the children made from Year Two)

The national average is zero. If the figure is above zero this is better than the national average if it is a negative number then less than the average progress was made.  This figure can only said to be significant if the difference between the number and zero is greater than the ‘confidence interval. (this is a statistical device which makes sure that the numbers are really meaningful.

To view our DFE performance table please follow the link below

Department for Education Performance Tables

At Goldstone Primary School we follow the National Curriculum.  We strive to ensure that our children receive as broad and balanced an education as possible and that they aspire to achieve.  You can find out information about the curriculum followed by children as they progress through the school by clicking here.

At Goldstone we take pride in the behaviour of our children.  All pupils are encouraged to be respectful of the staff and of eachother.  In our last Ofsted report we were graded Outstanding for the "Behaviour and Safety of Pupils".

For more information about our approach to behaviour, please read our Behaviour Policy:

Report on how Pupil Premium is Spent and its Impact.

Pupil premium is a funding stream which the government introduced in an attempt to address some of the inequalities suffered by disadvantaged children.
In the financial year 2016-2017 the school received £163k.  This money was generated by the 127 children who were in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) at the time of the school census’ 2011-2017, most attracting funding of £1300 (the figure is not an exact multiple of £1300 due to children leaving or joining mid-year) and Looked After Children (LAC) £1900.
At Goldstone we have always invested heavily in narrowing the gap between children from disadvantaged families and those who are more affluent.  Our success in this has seen us invited to speak at conferences which had this theme.  The Pupil Premium has allowed us to sustain some of the work which we have done in the past and add to our portfolio of support.  Our Pupil Premium Policy out lays how this money is spent in general terms.

Existing programmes supported by the Pupil Premium

The Sunflower Room- A place where our two Inclusion Mentors (IM) work to support vulnerable children mainly with Behavioural Emotional and Social Difficulties (BESD).  The room is the base for our Inclusion Mentors who work with children on an individual basis and in groups.  They work with children who have mainly emotional needs although some of their work has been targeted at children with diagnosed difficulties such as ASC’s and ADHD.  The work of our Inclusion Mentors is pivotal to the smooth running of the school and as a means of providing access to education for a group of very needy children.  The Inclusion Mentors run nurture groups, self-esteem groups and also work as keyworkers for some of our very emotionally fragile children giving them a point of secure contact and a person with whom they are able to ‘download’ some of their anxieties and concerns.  The IM’s also monitor behavioural patterns and trends.
The school had zero fixed term  exclusions last year  and has never permanently excluded a child, the Sunflower Room and particularly the work of the Inclusion Mentors has enabled us to reach and maintain this situation even when we have  admitted  very needy children who have struggled to be included in other schools, and have either been excluded or ‘advised’ to move to prevent them from being excluded.  In the time since the Inclusion Mentors have been working the three year average has dropped to zero, despite having some very challenging children join the school and the school numbers increasing.
The majority of the children who use the Sunflower Room regularly are recipients of free school meals. There was a real danger that the level of support which we were able to offer via the sunflower room would need to be cut in light of reduced funding from the local authority. Pupil premium money which has been put into this service has enabled us to expand the provision to match our expanding school. This impacts on all children because, by supporting the children who have specific emotional needs we are supporting all children’s learning in the classroom by creating a calm and effective learning environment.
The Sunflower Room costs £40,000 per year and 60% (£24,000) of this is funded by pupil premium.

Reading Recovery Teachers – Vicky Conry is an accredited reading recovery teacher. The impact of her work has been dramatic and the children who worked with her made significantly more progress than would have been expected. 62.5% of children made accelerated progress last year with 25% making good progress and the others being referred to other school remedial programmes. 75% of children who were on the Reading Recovery Programme were disadvantaged. £10,000 of Ms Conry’s salary is funded by pupil premium.

New Programmes Introduced Since the Advent of Pupil Premium

Reading Assistants – We have employed and trained 5.5 specialised reading assistants to work with children in key stage 1 who are struggling to make the age expectations at the end of KS1. These children have daily support and are making excellent progress. The assistants have all had training in the Fischer Family Trust Programme, Better Reading Partners and High Five scheme. Teachers report significant improvements with these children, with the majority reaching or moving towards age expectations (see appendix for detailed progress reports). Next year we are hoping to use the increase in pupil premium to support this further. The cost of this programme in the last financial year was approximately £90,000. The Pupil Premium money is funding £60,000 of this. In our last OfStEd inspection the work of the reading centre was highly praised.
One to one teaching has been established and proved successful in the school for several years; this is funded by the pupil premium. We have employed a very experienced and excellent teacher to work one to one with children from across the junior age range. The progress made by these children has been excellent, both parents and children have reported very positive feelings and outcomes. The data supports our belief that this investment helps us to ‘narrow the gap’. The cost of the 1:1 teaching support we have this year is £12,000. This support has focused on children who receive pupil premium with £10,000 being spent on this.

Speech and Language Provision - The amount of support our children receive from various agencies associated with speech and language difficulties has dramatically decreased over the past few years. We have taken the bold decision to train two specialist Teaching Assistants to support children with speech and language needs. These two very capable and highly trained staff have made a real impact on the academic and social outcomes for a range of children. Again, pupil premium has allowed us to maintain this provision, funding £25,000 of the £40,000 it costs to keep this running.

Maths Interventions - We have devised a maths intervention programme aimed at getting our Key Stage 1 and 2 children up to basic numeracy levels. This has shown really positive outcomes with 77% of our children now reaching appropriate levels or above by the end of year two. £6,000 of pupil premium helps to fund this.

Storybones – An authoring group for 10 children a week. The aim of this innovative programme is to engage children with story-telling and writing. It is a programme which has the joy of story at its heart. Many children who have been reluctant to get involved with story writing have achieved very well as part of the Storybones teams.

Improving Attendance - We have used some pupil premium money to enable some children to attend breakfast, after school club and one of our holiday play schemes. This has had a positive effect on these individual children’s attendance. Children have had different levels of access to free places at different times. (Budget: £2,000).

Increased Teaching Assistant Time - Each of our 23 classes receives Teaching Assistant support. Part of the role of the Teaching Assistant is to ensure that children who are from disadvantaged backgrounds and who have low prior attainment make good progress. Approximately £1,500 of pupil premium money supports this in each class. This year a specific teaching assistant was employed just to work with children from the reception classes who attracted Pupil Premium funding.

Providing Access to School Activities and Residential Trips - Pupil Premium money is used to support individual pupils so that financial concerns are not barriers to their involvement in school life. We do this in two main ways: firstly by subsidising clubs to make them more affordable for all of our pupils (most of our clubs are free) and secondly by paying all or part of costs for pupils who are in need of support and receive pupil premium.
We also pay for music lessons and will help with equipment and on some occasions, transport to activities. We have used pupil premium money to support children in going on residential visits. Approximately £10,000 is set aside for this from Pupil Premium. We have also purchased uniform, musical instruments, magazine subscriptions and occasionally offering transport. (Budget: £2000).

During the financial year 2017-2018 we aim to maintain these services which benefit the whole school but disproportionately those children who are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

We have slightly increased our out of class support and added a third inclusion mentor to our team so that children who need immediate help can receive it. This new proactive Inclusion Mentor will work largely with children from disadvantaged families.

Our continuing aim is to eradicate the attainment gap between those children who are in receipt of Pupil Premium and those who are not. In 2017 our key stage one results indicated that our disadvantaged pupils actually out performed our non-disadvantaged children in some areas.

Please click here for the Pupil Premium Policy.

Sports Premium Spending 2016/2017 and Proposed Spending for 2017/2018

Sports premium is a sum of money which the government provides so that we can promote participation in sport. At Goldstone we have always spent a great deal of money making sport accessible and making sure that we offer a wide range of opportunities for our children to be active. We want our children to develop a love of sport whether it be competitive or non-competitive.

The amount of money we received in the year 2016/2017 was £10160 and was the same amount in 2017/2018

Our aims for this money were:

• Increase the number of sports on offer at Goldstone
• Enable a wider range of children to participate in school sport
• Develop our extra curricular offer further
• Develop sports leaders
• Invest in equipment

One of the main thrusts of our sports provision is our work with Premier Sports which is a company which provides us with high quality  (and quality assured) sports coaches. These help not only with curriculum sport and PE but also with providing extra curricular activities. In the year 2016/17 sports premium funding contributed £5500 towards the cost of £29000 for the work of premier sport- this part of the money paying for extra curricular activities which are offered to the children at no cost.

£600 of sports funding cost towards the running costs of the school mini bus which is very important for taking teams to sporting events.

£1500 of sports premium money was used to release teaching staff for training and to allow them to take children to sporting events (this only actually paid for approximately half of the cost of this).

We have invested in new equipment for both curricular and extra curricular activities, this took £1500 of sports premium money.

Sporting activities at lunchtime offer children the chance to enjoy participation and provide great lunchtime engagement for some harder to reach children. £500 of sports premium supported this.

A further £250 was used for staff release and training for lunchtime provision development.

We offered support for children who wished to participate in sport both in school and local clubs and spent £250 on this.

Plans for 2017/2018 Sports Premium

We aim to spend the money again supporting sports development and spending will be along similar lines as outlined below.

Although the Sports Premium is an important part of the money we spend at Goldstone promoting sport and activity, we actually spend far more than this amount in this area.