About the School
Visitors often tell us that as soon as they arrive at Claremont, they get a sense of warmth and vibrancy, of a school with a genuine buzz about it. We think so too. Claremont is an ‘outstanding’ school, of 434 pupils and 56 part- and full-time staff, and it is a wonderful, welcoming, exciting, bubbly place. We support each other and all work hard to do our best. We reckon our 50th birthday celebration video captures some of that, so please have a look.
Please read the welcome letter from the Chair of Governors, which, together with this page will give you a bit of detail and background about our school to look at alongside the video.
Our school vision is to be 'A hub of educational excellence and innovation, supporting and valuing everyone'. It was developed with consultation with all stakeholders the detail behind the work can be seen in this presentation and is now providing a genuine focus for everyone at the school. From this, again consulting pupils, parents and staff, we decided our school values, Determination with Self-Belief; Respect and Kindness; Joy in Wellbeing; and Imagination through Curiosity. These are now woven into the fabric of our school. Watch a video of Linden class’s interpretation of Kindness and Respect here
The school itself is in excellent shape, thanks to sound financial management and the generous support of our PTA. We have an ongoing premises maintenance programme which saw the school re-roofed in 2017, and the 1980s classroom windows replaced last year. Additionally, thanks to the PTA, we have a rolling five-year ICT update programme. Outside, the school has a beautiful woodland area for our outdoor learning and forest school skills, plus large playgrounds and a sports field.
Our staff are an exceptional team, with amazing, motivational dynamism. We have a great mix of recently trained teachers, a few in their second or third job, and several who’ve been with us for many years. Our support staff, both classroom- and office-based, are also truly excellent and all together they make up a dedicated, talented and hard-working team, many with additional qualifications, including four SLEs. They are always looking for ways to improve and develop their teaching and the pupils’ learning, something we support with excellent CPD. Claremont is the primary partner in the Altius teaching school , through which we provide school-to-school support and professional and leadership training, and which provides career development opportunities for staff. We are a School Centred Initial Teacher Training centre with Teach Kent & Sussex and Altius: we train two teachers every year and oversee the training of other primary trainees.
Parents are particularly involved and supportive at Claremont. We have over 70 valued volunteers who come in regularly to help the school and the pupils. Additionally, the PTA is very active, organising events all through the year - Summer fair, Easter Egg hunt, discos, cinema club - and more unusually, also staging a music festival on the sports field. ‘Clarefest’ is host every summer to local bands, including school pupil rock bands and a staff supergroup, who play to a crowd of pupils and parents as the sun goes down.
And what are the pupils up to? They’re in and out of class learning, of course, but they also have the annual ‘P-Factor’ poetry competition, ‘Claremont’s Got Talent’, the Claremont Chronicle (the termly school newspaper), inter-house cross-country races, dancing and singing events, school visits, including residential stays for years 4 and 6. Outside school there are lots of clubs for the pupils, including athletics, Spanish, orchestra, pottery, chess, tag rugby, craft, gymnastics, cricket and choir …
Here is a gallery of pictures of our pupils and our school. Please have a look at the gallery on our school website to see more of what goes on at Claremont”
We hope that all this will have given you a sense of what our school is like, but it’s best to come and see for yourself: give us a call.