Portico Academy Trust Newsletter
July 2024
Message from the CEO
Dear Parent/Carers,
This has been an interesting and successful year for our group of schools. Mr Roche has settled in well to the leadership of Hamstel Infants - a post he took up last June, 2023. We also have a new prinicipal at West Leigh, Mr Aggus who took up his post in June 2024.
Hamstel Junior School were visited by Ofsted in May 2024 and were found to be a 'Good' school and Porters Grange were visited by Ofsted in June 2024 and were also found to be a 'Good' school. The reports on both schools were glowing and we were very proud of our children and staff in each school.
The learning in each of our schools has been exceptionally well planned by our staff teams and the vast majority of our children have made a lot of progress. They have all had interesting visitors into school and exciting trips out.
Our teachers often work together and support each other. We all meet every year at a conference to discuss learning and teaching. We work together on sports, music, art and D&T (joined by Darlinghurst).
We would like to thank you, our parent communities for your valued support in partnership with us to teach your children.
I would like to thank our Trust Board, all volunteers, who invest their time in visiting our schools and getting to know them in order to make informed decisions.
Finally, we are blessed with five sets of amazing staff - teachers, LSAs, admin staff, site staff and others who never rest on a problem who put the children first in everything they do. I know you will join with me in saying a big thank you to every one of them.
My very best wishes for a grand summer, whoever you may be. And hopefully it will stop raining and the sun will shine for you.
Yours sincerely
Mrs C Woolf
CEO
Message from Chair of Trust
It has been another busy and successful year for our five Portico Schools. We were delighted that Ofsted confirmed both Hamstel Juniors and Porters Grange as being 'Good' Schools. If you haven't had a chance yet, please do read the reports as they are a lovely reminder of the fantastic work that is being delivered to your children every single day.
Karen Packer
Our Vision
As primary specialists, Portico Academy Trust firmly believes that all our children, no matter their background, deserve the very best education, every day, every lesson, whatever the context. Through close professional collaboration and sharing best practice, initiatives and expertise, we want every child to experience a breadth of opportunity across the diverse cultural background of our country.
We will develop strong leaders and make our schools supportive communities for staff and parents, where mutual respect is paramount. We are passionate in protecting our environment and encourage positive views and actions in the wider world.
We believe it is vital that each child acquires the essential key skills they will need to secure the fundamental building blocks of learning. In creating an exciting curriculum, expertly delivered, our children will leave us well prepared for their future lives with a love of learning and with an enthusiastic, independent, inquisitive and risk taking mind-set.
Our Values
- We want the best learning experience for every child, every day.
- We recognise that learning is the key to every child’s future.
- We meet challenges head on and find creative solutions.
- We treat all members of our school community and our environment with respect.
Our Aims
- To create a family of outstanding schools with clear purpose, direction and objectives
- To provide environments where teaching and learning is paramount and children enjoy and are engaged in a rich and relevant curriculum tailored to their individual needs
- To narrow gaps in attainment with the intention of reducing inequalities
- To ensure empowerment of all pupils to achieve their full potential
- To create and foster a culture of high aspiration amongst all pupils, regardless of their social, economic or cultural background
- To strive for excellence in teaching and learning
- To ensure strong engagement in learning that fosters a lifelong learning ethos
- To promote excellent progress for all learners.
- To promote outstanding leadership and governance.
- To establish a financial foundation to enable the Trust to fulfil its vision
- To provide continual professional development and promote a well-resourced, high quality environment
- To become the employer of choice
- For each academy to be recognised as a centre of learning excellence, disseminating best practice within and beyond the Trust
- To engage proactively with parents and the community in partnership to support pupil progress, wellbeing and achievement
Friars Primary School and Nursery
What a busy year here at Friars! September seems a long time ago but at the same time it is hard to believe that we have arrived at the end of another year.
2023-24 was another successful year at the school with children doing well in their learning and a great deal of curriculum enrichment. Our calendar has been jam-packed with events, visits and visitors. We enjoy having parents, carers and family and friends visit us. Over the year, there have been performances, workshops, fayres, inflatable events and a huge sports day and picnic to name only a handful of events.
Two of the standout school visits remain our residential trips in Year 5 and Year 6. Many of the Year 6 children had an amazing time on the Isle of Wight at the end of May before Year 5 headed to the Thriftwood Scout Camp in the middle of June. These opportunities are so important to children’s development and we are grateful to the staff who make them happen.
Back on the calendar this year was ‘Careers Week’. A full timetable was planned with visitors seeing each year group across the school from our Nursery to Year 6. For Early Years and Key Stage 1, we had Little City come to the school. They set up a huge role play area in the hall and the children were able to dress up for different professions. Other visitors included a manager from BMW who brought along a car for the children to sit inside, a physiotherapist, a nurse, an engineer and a designer from the Natural History Museum. There was practical learning too with cooking workshops from Pabulum Catering. The children loved the week and we hope it helps to broaden horizons even further.
Our children are always a credit to the school. Their behaviour is always excellent inside school and when we leave the site. Many children have had opportunities to represent the school at sports competitions, music events and the like. Performances were fantastic with everyone giving it their all. We particularly enjoyed the Junior Music Festival at the Cliffs Pavilion which gave more than thirty children the chance to sing on a big stage.
Here's to a lovely summer break and a sure-to-be exciting 2024-25.
Hamstel Infant School & Nursery
What a year it has been at Hamstel Infants and Nursery!
Our children have had so many amazing learning and enrichment experiences over the year and they have fully embraced and enjoyed everything we have offered them.
The year got off with a bang with the visit of Happy’s Circus; this gave us a real feel-good atmosphere to get the year started. Our biggest educational visit was for Year 2, who loved their day at Hyde Hall Garden, where a fabulous time was had by all!
As a whole school we have celebrated such events as Harvest Festival and Remembrance Day, while also taking part in national events including Children in Need, Odd Socks Day and Anti-bullying week. Looking for any chance to dress up, we held pirate days, superhero days and Christmas Jumper day. We wore green for Mental Health awareness and the costumes on display during our World Book Day celebrations were simply fantastic!
Children wowed their parents with each year group completing a dazzling performance across the year; Reception and Nursery performed their annual Nativities while Year 2 performed their Christingle service. Then Year 1 got us in the mood for some better weather, with their ‘Rise and Shine’ Spring show. The Year 2s gave us a fitting end to their time at Hamstel Infants with a fabulous showing of their ‘Mermaids vs Pirates’ leavers show and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house for all the right reasons!
Food and dressing up seemed to play a big part in some of our other curriculum enrichment activities as we made pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, held a relatives' afternoon tea, a Teddy Bears picnic and even held a traditional knights' banquet.
We have also had several visitors to school: visiting authors, the fire and police services, story tellers and our regular visiting friend of Hamstel, Revd Andy Goodliffe. Night Owls visited to give the children a close-up view of their amazing birds and our crazy visiting scientist thrilled the children with dry ice and real fire used in his experiments. The NSPCC also delivered their ‘Speak Out, Stay Safe’ workshops and our Year 2s took part in a mini first aid training, a vital part of our safeguarding practices here at Hamstel. We couldn’t forget Gemma’s Farm, who spent two days in the wildlife garden giving such memorable, hands on experiences to all of our children.
As always , parents and carers, played a big part in school life again this year – coming into school to take part in academic workshops with their children around phonics, maths, handwriting, reading and the curriculum, as well as more creative sessions such as, outdoor learning, our Christmas and Easter craft days, sewing workshops and of course, our performances and whole school sports days.
Hamstel Junior School
Hamstel Junior School had an exciting year with many achievements and successes. Our Year 3 children have taken part in their first Christmas Carol concert performing in the Junior School, Stone Age Day and Egyptian Day as well as local area walks, and school visit to the beach. In Year 4 they have taken part in Bikeability, Roman Day, Thames Estuary Water workshops, their Easter production and a visit on the train to Old Leigh. Year 5 have enjoyed Greek Day, secondary school WOW day at King Edmund School, the Christmas production, Skreens Park residential in Chelmsford and Samba drumming! And finally in Year 6 a visit to Duxford, World War Two Day, Christmas carol concert at Holy Trinity Church, music workshop with a professional musician and composer, expression and delivery workshop as well as the Year 6 residential and adventure week.
The whole school have had a range of visitors including a star author in each year group, a professional songwriter writing a school song with the choir, whole class cooking in the school kitchen, Science Week, World Music Day, World Book Day and many charity and fundraising events. The choir performed at The Palace Theatre, at 'Southend Makes Music', an event the school has not participated in before. The school achieved its best ever results in Super Sports with one of our boys being Borough champion in the ball throwing, and Borough champions in Year 3 and 4 relays and Year 3 girls sprint. It been a busy year with so many great opportunities and experiences for all children to participate in!
Porters Grange Primary School & Nursery
We have had a very busy year at Porters Grange. One full of learning, playing, visitors and visits. Each year group has been out and about be it at the Southend Museum (Years 3 & 4), the Planetarium (Year 5), the Sealife Aquarium (Year 1), Garons Hive (Years 2 & 3), the British Museum (Year 6) as well as numerous local visits in the local environment and the beach. Our Year 6s also had the opportunity to go on a residential visit to Essex Outdoor’s Danbury site. In addition, we have also been fortunate enough to welcome visiting authors, religious ministers, the Port of London and Essex Cricket to work with classes in Years 5 and 6. The whole school this year welcomed visitors each half term virtually through the My Future My Southend project which serves to raise the aspirations of our children by showing them what is possible. Once again, we hosted the Southend Diving School in Years 2 & 3 where they talent spotted for future Olympians.
Our play provision goes from strength to strength. This year, to join all the things we have already in place, a sailing boat has arrived in the north playground alongside a new mud kitchen, wheeled toys have been introduced onto the bridge playground and the range of den building and loose parts has grown on the south playground.
Over the course of the year our school council has met and worked to improve the experiences of the children in the school. They met with subject leaders to discuss and feedback to them the children’s opinions. They chose the charities that we would support over the course of the year and also consulted with Chef David on the school lunch menu. Joining them for one day was our democratically elected Principal for the Day. Essa, along with his vice principals Zahra and Deniston, they ran the school for the day, implementing changes such as extended breaks and lunch whilst ensuring that the education the children received that day was top notch through learning walks and drop ins.
Our choir has performed multiple times at the Cliffs Pavilion at Christmas and during the Seesma Music Festival and at the Palace Theatre for Southend Make Music. They also visited local care homes to provide welcome entertainment for the residents. Our KS1 choir has made music at the King’s Road Unitarian Church alongside others in the spring. Over the Christmas period we linked with our local church of All Saints to perform a carol service and nativity play. They also welcomed us for Christingle services which the children thoroughly enjoyed.
Our sports teams have performed incredibly across a range of sports from bowling to dodgeball, hockey to swimming, excitingly at the Olympic pool in Stratford! Whilst we may not win all the competitions the teams always represent the school in a way which makes us proud. In addition, this year, our dance club performed at “Southend Gotta Dance” at the Palace Theatre, where they brought great joy to their families present and the wider audience. We were once again incredibly fortunate to use Southchurch Park for our Key Stage 2 sports afternoon. We were blessed with fine weather and were once again supported by Southend-on-Sea EMT Cricket Club who kindly gave us access to their pavilion. Happily the bad weather relented and we were able to successfully rearrange our sports morning and afternoons for Reception and Key Stage 1.
All in all, we have had a busy and happy year at Porters Grange and we look forward to next September.
West Leigh Junior School
This year was, as usual, packed full of activities across all four year groups. We held three residential visits in Years 3, 5 and 6, and the children greatly benefited from the opportunity to work on their team-building skills and develop their independence.
Throughout the year, many visits and visitors were carefully planned to complement learning across the curriculum. Children’s experiences of literature were greatly enhanced with visits from The Young Shakespeare Company and authors of children’s fiction. We used our local area to carry out field studies and develop geography techniques such as creating field sketches and carrying out building and traffic surveys. Children investigated questions such as ‘Will Chocolate Grow in Leigh-on-Sea?’ and ‘What Value Does the River Thames Bring to Leigh-on-Sea?’ Year 5 visited West Stow, an Anglo-Saxon village, which brought their historical learning to life.
Our driver this year was ‘The Little Things Count’; we focused on this in a wide variety of ways. Assemblies reminded the children of the importance of taking care of ‘the little things’ and the difference that this can make to others. Local volunteers visited the school to share the impact of giving back to the community. We introduced ‘golden thank yous’ to quietly thank those around the school who we noticed doing the little things – both staff and pupils are able to nominate. Team challenges also reinforced our driver, as children created Keith Haring style images demonstrating the little things in action, as well as creating ‘kindness’ rocks and exchanging these across the school.
Links have been built with local schools and we welcomed pupils from Westcliff High School for Boys, who delivered science workshops to our Year 5 pupils. We were also visited by pupils from Southend High School for Girls, who inspired us with their musical performances.
Our school council has continued to be a driving force for change. They visited parliament this year and were able to learn more about how the country is run. We held a whole school election to mirror the general election and parents spoke highly of the children’s political interest and knowledge. We invited local candidates to the school, who were interviewed by our councillors, using questions generated by children from all year groups. Finally, children listened to some fictional manifestos, and used their knowledge to take part in a democratic vote. We plan to share our results with the new Prime Minister – perhaps we may see some of these ideas in action in the future!
We had great successes in sport, art and music; our Borough Sports team achieved joint first place and we took part in concerts such as ‘Southend Makes Music’ at the Cliffs Pavilion and ‘Young Voices’ at the O2. Our Easter art competition saw some wonderfully creative entries and we were very proud of all those who represented the school and were placed within their categories within the Leigh Art Trail this year.
It has been a wonderful year, full of opportunities for all. We look forward to what the next year will bring!
Portico Art & DT Festival
For the last three weeks of the summer term, our Portico Art and Design Festival travelled between our Portico schools again in what has become an annual tradition for showcasing the subjects of Art and DT. Starting at Friars, then onto Porters, then West Leigh Juniors, before ending at the Hamstel schools, each school carefully displayed its work on stands in our halls, which were then transported by minibus between the different locations. The quality of the displays was of a particularly high standard with year groups from all of our schools showcasing the journey towards creating high-quality finished products. We had a range of painting, drawing, 3D sculptures, textiles, photography, digital art and construction. What a showcase of skills!
Children from all our schools visited and enjoyed the exhibition and were able to learn from the practice of their peers in other schools. There were many wonderful comments from children appreciating the art, as well as parents who commented on the variety of work across the trust. It is a wonderful showcase of the range of art and DT that our children are exposed to and the experience of visiting our very own gallery is one that the children can get very excited about! We can’t wait to see what’s in store for our next exhibition!
Portico Music Event
On Thursday 2nd May, children from across the Portico Trust were brought together in the first trust wide music workshop. The children came from Years 1 to 4, spanning the ages 6 – 9 years old. With kind permission from David Stanley at The Music Man Project, they worked together, under the direction of teachers Mrs Baines and Mrs Bemister, to create a version of the beautiful song Peace and Hope using tuned percussion instruments and a small but perfectly formed choir. The shared outcome was very uplifting and we hope that this will be the first of many music workshops whereby the children from across the trust can gather together to make music, explore ensemble work and perform together.
Portico Staff Charity Football Match
Portico Academy were recently invited to play football against a local fundraising club, Farke Knight Rises. A quick email around and it was clear that there was an interest from our staff. With training sessions before the big day, booked in, we set about forming a squad.
On the day Mr Telling organised a kit from a local club but did not check the sizes and after a few number changes (due to size of shirts) everyone was ready for the warm up.
Those that still play for a team performed a dynamic warm up, whereas the older adults kicked the ball around.
Portico settled on a formation – younger players at the back and midfield and older ones up front or sub. The plan for the day was not to be humiliated and maybe score a goal. Roll on 2 minutes of the game and Mr Markham had the ball in the back of the net, 1-0 Portico.
Everyone settled into the game and it became clear that it was a fair match up between two sides that played excellent passing football. With Mr Sesniak pulling off great saves in goal the ball broke down the right to Mr Sayer who switched the ball to Mr Davies whose shot beat the keeper and Mr Markham tapped in his second goal.
Portico made changes at the half way mark of the first half and Mr Aggus came on to give us more of an attacking threat down the right-hand side, only for him to tweak a hamstring after 4 minutes and having to be replaced.
Portico continued to play good football and after conceding a goal, scored again through Mr Young before conceding again to go into the break 3-2 up.
The second half came and Mr Gibbard, who is used to sorting out IT issues, scored a screamer from 35 yards before Mr Telling scored from the penalty spot. A late goal from the Farke Knights could not dampen the spirits and the game was won 5-4.
Well done to everyone involved and over £300 was raised for Gold Geese Cancer Charity.
Status Quo drummer visits Portico Schools
In June we had special guest, Jeff Rich, from Status Quo visit the Portico Schools to deliver a drumming workshop. Jeff was a drummer in Status Quo for many years and now visits schools to share his experiences and perform workshops.
Jeff runs workshops for Key Stage 2 children, and after telling everyone his background he got straight onto showing his talent and skills. It was a very interactive session and many children had the opportunity to be involved. The feedback from children and staff was excellent and no doubt we will be seeing Jeff again in the future.
Janelle McCurdy visits Portico
Two schools from the Portico Academy Trust family were treated to a visit from an exciting and inspirational writer on Monday 9th October. Janelle McCurdy, who works not only as a children’s author but also as a game reviewer, was able to share with the children from both West Leigh Junior School and Porters Grange Primary how she writes her books. Her first book, Mia and the Lightcasters, has been shortlisted for book awards and the second instalment of the trilogy, Mia and the traitor of Nubis, is set to be just as successful. Working as a game reviewer has certainly helped her to access young readers’ imaginations and engage them in her fantasy writing.
She spoke with the children about what life is like as an author, as well as providing an insight into the fantasy adventures that she enjoys writing. Following Q&A sessions with the children, Janelle went on to inspire the children to create their own ‘umbra’: a fantasy animal companion to help in their own adventure stories – the children were enthralled! At the end of the day at Porters Grange, Janelle stayed for a book signing (supported by the wonderful staff at Jacqson Diego – Southend’s Independent Children’s book shop) and was able to speak with the children and their families further.
Inspiring children through the meeting of authors is at the heart of Portico’s aim to help all the pupils develop a love of both reading and writing.
Community Links
Friars Primary School & Nursery - At Friars, we continue to value working in partnership with our local community, including our parent community. The past academic year has seen our children and staff go out into Shoeburyness and Southend and visitors come into the school many times. Key aspects of personal development that we have worked hard on this year are raising children’s career aspirations and developing children’s understanding of RE through specific visitors. During Careers Week we had many people from different walks of life visit the children and over the year we had visits from the imam of the local mosque as well as different church visits. Year 5 visited the Baptist Church in July and these links are flourishing. There are lots of other local visitors who are key to our curriculum learning too.
Hamstel Infant School & Nursery - The local community is an important part of our experiences at Hamstel with each class visiting Southend beach or one of our local churches, paying a visit to the local library or the post box to deliver those all-important letters to Santa. Our choir took their festive voices to local residential homes at Christmas, which the elderly residents loved singing along with and our Year 1 children visited the Hive each term for their seasonal visits.
Our Team Hamstel sports team, took part in many local sports events, competing against other schools in the area. These included tag rugby, cross country, 3ts cricket, gymnastics and mini games competitions, before bringing home the first of two trophies. The first was a win in the Quad kids event, which was then followed up with overall second place in the Borough Sports. Well done Team Hamstel!
Hamstel Junior School The school serves a large community from diverse areas. This year we have worked hard to serve our community and provide essential links for our pupils and their families. This year, The school choir has performed at Scotts Garden Centre, the Whittingham Residential Home for the Elderly and the two main theatres in the city. Year 6 have performed at Holy Trinity Church, as well inviting key 'retired' members of the school in to talk about Hamstel when they attended and how the school had changed. We have a very active Parents Association who have worked tirelessly to raise money with a range of events that the children have benefited from, one of which is our regular monthly pre-loved uniform shop and for the first time a summer fayre. We have continued to open the school site to various community groups including the local Tami school, Karate, Active Life and a regular kids holiday camp. We are part of the community service in the city where those on probation are supervised to work on painting etc around the site. We have also worked with local secondary schools improving links with them and have been part of secondary teachers professional development in learning about Maths planning in primary schools as well as hosting teachers to observe Year 6 lessons. And finally we remain a Packed with Smiles School which enables a number of families to benefit from uniform packs and school equipment.
Porters Grange Primary School & Nursery - Over the course of the year our children have raised money for a series of different charities. Selected by the school council we have supported Children in Need and Save the Children in the autumn term to Comic Relief in the spring. During Harvest we had visitors from St John’s Church to talk us through the wonder of the harvest and how they help in the community. Children have also contributed to the community by going to the beach to litter pick. We were fortunate enough to link up with volunteers from NatWest Bank to help with our wildlife garden and make it ready for our children to access. We continued with our links to Southend United with Year 6s visiting Roots Hall in the summer term.
West Leigh Junior School - The school council play a very active role when selecting the charities we support throughout the year. In consultation with their classes, they selected Children in Need, Royal British Legion, Cancer Research and Comic Relief. They have had lots of fun with our various charity endeavours, including a teachers 'Gladiator' style event, whole school obstacle course and creative fancy dress day. The teachers also supported MacMillan with a coffee morning. The council visited St Vincent's Food Bank in Southend during the autumn term to see their harvest donations in action.
Doing our bit for Charity
Over the course of the academic year, we held non-uniform days, Christmas jumper days and other fundraising events to raise money for important causes, some as a trust and others as individual schools.