About the School
Please read a letter from Ann, Chair of Governors.
You can read our Ofsted report here.
Phoenix Community Primary School is a Good school, on its journey to become Outstanding.
We are a one form entry primary school located on the outskirts of Ashford, Kent. Being one form entry, we are a friendly community school that prides itself upon its welcoming, inclusive, nurturing ethos. With a committed and dedicated body of staff, as well as an experienced senior leadership team, Phoenix Community Primary School supports and nurtures its staff with multiple opportunities for CPD.
Our school is an oasis for our children, utilising breakfast clubs and many after schools clubs to provide them with new opportunities for development and discover their potential. In years 2 and 4 the students have the use of Forest School, to help develop their skills of resilience, perseverance and problem-solving, in the nearby woods. This is an area we would like to expand upon to provide this opportunity to children of all ages, empowering them to build their confidence and self esteem.
Our school is exceptional well-resourced and, as such, is able to provide opportunities for children significantly beyond that of the National Curriculum. We utilise school minibuses often to take children off site to continue providing them different experiences and multiple sporting opportunities. Our learning culture is something we are incredibly proud of, helping all of our students achieve and nurturing their talents.
The school places a high emphasis on the Creative Arts and achieved ArtsMark Gold in 2014. We also have our own Music Studio where all children have weekly lessons with a dedicated, specialist music teacher and where subsidised instrumental lessons are offered to pupils. The school also has
achieved the Primary Science Quality Mark (Silver), the Anti-Bullying Award
and the Leading Parent Partnership Award.
The school invest heavily in technology, with a set of 32 iPads, which are used on a daily basis, and each classroom is now outfitted with a Clever Touch interactive TV. We continue to use ICT to enhance learning within our school and hope that this provides new opportunities to learn for our students
As a founding member of the CARE foundation trust, this collaboration with local schools is very important to us. Phoenix became a founding member of the Trust in September 2017. The trust comprises of 10 local schools who have been working together for many years in supporting each other informally . We all decided that we would formalize things, whilst still keeping our own school identity.
The Head Teachers meet regularly to discuss issues and plan projects. They are known as HUGS. The deputies also meet and are now known as DUGS.
We have already managed to save money on purchasing services because there are 10 schools. We are currently working on the structure of the Trust and there are several working groups comprising of governors and Heads. We are very proud to be in at the beginning of a new and exciting venture. It was very important that we all kept our own autonomy and as such have choice over what part we play and how much we contribute. Our aim is to support each other in many ways and to share and develop our practices to benefit our children and staff.
We also have strong collaborative links with our local Hub schools, the Ashford Teaching Alliance, a local Early Excellence Learning Network and we are also a Learning Partner of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust.