Halfway Houses Primary School

Halfway Houses Primary School is a vibrant and ambitious school, proud to have been judged Ofsted Good in 2024. Outcomes at Key Stage 2 are consistently above national averages in reading, writing and maths, reflecting our commitment to ensuring every child thrives. We are fortunate to have a strong, experienced team of teachers and support staff, united by a culture of collaboration and a belief that all children can achieve highly. Our positive community relationships and excellent parent partnerships strengthen the work we do every day. As part of our trust, we benefit from strong support from the central team, enhancing both our operational capacity and the professional development of our staff. Our school environment is spacious and well resourced, with extensive grounds, large classrooms, a generous hall space, and multiple additional learning areas, including sensory rooms. Recent investment has further enhanced our provision, including a new all weather pitch, new pupil laptops, and the launch of Opal Play, which will significantly enrich our play offer and support children’s development beyond the classroom. At the heart of our vision is a commitment to ensuring that all children achieve and become the very best they can be, regardless of their background. We want every child to feel known, valued and supported to flourish. Employees of the trust also benefit from the Westfield Health Employee Assistance Programme, which includes access to wellbeing support as well as retail, gym and discounts on travel.

TILT is a local, high performing Trust that is invested in raising aspirations for children and families in Swale. The Island Learning Trust promotes and achieves excellence. It recognises the importance of outstanding teaching and learning by actively encouraging creativity and innovation, whilst having consistent standards of behaviour and attendance. Treating everyone as equal, whilst celebrating diversity, is a non-negotiable; protecting all through safeguarding, health and safety and welfare is paramount. The Trust's core mission is to drive transformation in eductional standards for all pupils; accelerating progress, raising standards of education achieved and the aspirations of the children and families we serve, developing high performing, outstanding schools for the future.

Staff have a responsibility to be positive in their relationships with pupils and supportive of each other. We have a responsibilty to ensure every moment a child is in our school will be spent productively. Through thorough use of evidence we will enable all children to make excellent progress. Our motto is "to be the best we can be"; We maintain a relentless focus on raising standards of achievement so that all pupils have opportunites to achieve their full potential.

We expect all staff to maintain the highest professional standards at all times. We put children first. Staff are prepared to go the extra mile to provide the best possible education for their pupils. Our aim should always be to provide for the pupils of our school what we would want for our own children. In order to do this we maintain a rigorous focus on: accelerating and improving attainment and progress, improving the quality of teaching and learning so that it is at least strongly good, effective leadership and accountability structures and ensuring consistent application of agreed systems and processes throughout all TILT schools.

The Island Learning Trust was established on 1st November 2016. The MAT was comprised of Minster Primary and Halfway Houses Primary, both schools are on the Isle of Sheppey, an area of high deprivation and socio economic challenges. These two founding schools are both Ofsted rated good schools. The outcomes at Minster Primary are outstanding. Sunny Bank Primary School in Sittingbourne joined TILT in February 2020 under a sponsorship arrangement and significant all round improvement has been made with the support of the MAT.