Jesmond Gardens Primary School in Hartlepool has 315 children, plus a 26-place nursery, and serves an area of severe deprivation with approximately 50% of our pupils qualifying for Pupil Premium.
We’re a fairly new school, having been built in 2012, and recently renewed our ‘Apple Distinguished School’ award, putting us in a group of just 400 schools in the world that can say the same.
Hartlepool is a pocket of the north east that’s historically been heavily reliant on industry, and recently suffered from significant deprivation and low aspirations. There are significant drug and alcohol issues, as well as a high level of need in the local community we serve, so we have to provide our children with the necessary skillsets and life aspirations they’ll need when they leave here.
What we’ve therefore done is involve the children in developing what they see as important within the curriculum and made links with local secondary schools – one of which runs a programme called ‘I Aspire’, where our year 4, 5 and 6 children get to learn about a wide range of jobs and activities they could be doing in later life. The aim is to raise our children’s aspirations to take in the prospect of attending university, and essentially show what the world can offer them, rather than put a ceiling on whatever their aspirations may be.
We’re bound to keep things based around literacy and numeracy, but we try to place a real emphasis on developing each child’s unique talents in terms of the foundation curriculum. We’re always looking to organise visits from professionals who can help develop our efforts in this area, which is how we came to be featured on an edition of ITV’s Tonight show earlier this year, in which Robert Peston looked at ‘life after Brexit’, with a focus on the north east and the need for schools to teach the skills companies will need in future.
We’ve previously had visits from policemen, game designers and social workers – on this occasion it was a specialist art teacher who helped the children create some artworks themed around their aspirations that showcased what they wanted to be. The programme makers were keen to get a sense of what occupations the children had chosen, why they were important to them and what skills they felt they needed in order to pursue them.
The filming took place during the school day. I’d informed parents of it via our newsletter, highlighting what an exciting opportunity this was for the school to show what we believe in, and then contacted the children who were going to be part of the filming and their parents to discuss what was going to happen.
In the event, the children were a credit to the school. They embraced the opportunity to showcase just how amazing they are, and how much value we as a school place on their creativity.
Philip Pritchard is the headteacher of Jesmond Gardens Primary School
