1.2 Fulbridge Academy
We now step inside a primary school in England to consider in some detail its approach to learning and teaching. Through the audio material, you will hear from some of the staff and children about what they do and what it feels like to be a member of the school community.
Fulbridge Academy is a large primary school in Peterborough, in the east of England. Many of its 700 pupils have recently arrived in the UK from a wide range of countries, including Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Iran and Afghanistan. There are 130 members of staff working at the school. The high number of pupils from around the world who speak languages other than English reflects increasing global mobility, which is changing the nature of many primary schools in the UK, even those in remote areas. Immigration has been a significant factor influencing primary education in the UK in the first decades of the twenty-first century, owing largely to the free movement of people within the European Union (EU) as well as those outside the EU who are fleeing war or political persecution. Following the outcome of the June 2016 referendum for the UK to leave the EU, it seems likely that the volume and patterns of immigration into the UK will change in the next few years, but the opportunities and challenges for schools will remain for the foreseeable future.
The title ‘academy’ refers to a category of school within the English education system at the time of writing. The UK government website (www.gov.uk) provides the following definition:
Academies are publicly funded independent schools. Academies don’t have to follow the national curriculum and can set their own term times. They still have to follow the same rules on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions as other state schools. Academies get money direct from the government, not the local council. They’re run by an academy trust, which employs the staff. Some academies have sponsors such as businesses, universities, other schools, faith groups or voluntary groups. Sponsors are responsible for improving the performance of their schools.
We have provided this definition as contextual information to place Fulbridge Academy at a particular point in history. Academies are a relatively recent introduction in England, and they may, with subsequent changes of government, be subject to different requirements or possibly replaced by another category of school. You may be familiar with a similarly changing educational landscape in your own area. The school at Fulbridge opened in 1935, originally as Fulbridge Council School. Since then it has changed its name and adapted and added to the school buildings a number of times, most recently in 2014. The school website (www.fulbridgeacademy.co.uk [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ) sets out Fulbridge Academy’s ethos and aims. At the time of writing, these are expressed as follows.
Unlocking potential
At the Fulbridge Academy we must ignite children’s imagination and their active, willing and enthusiastic engagement in their learning ...
Our curriculum should enable children to encounter and begin to explore the wealth of human experience through induction into, and active engagement in, the different ways through which humans make sense of their world: intellectual, moral, spiritual, aesthetic, social, emotional and physical, through language, mathematics, science, the humanities, the arts, religion and other ways of knowing and understanding and act upon it.
Creative Thinking is at the heart of the Fulbridge approach to learning. We aspire for the children to explore, negotiate, discover, experiment, speculate, empathise, reflect, collaborate, cooperate, persevere, show initiative, and demonstrate leadership, teamwork, curiosity, flexibility, integrity and curiosity.
You may find that the ethos and aims on the school’s website have changed since this course was written. This is because schools regularly review their policies and mission statements in response to changes in their local context and at government level. Statements such as this can be found in the prospectuses and websites of most schools today. It seems important, however, to consider who the intended audience is for these school ‘visions’ and how they are actually used. Are they written to inform prospective parents, for example, or to remind school staff of the principles intended to underpin their work at the school? If the latter, then how do you think this plays out in practice?