2024-2025 Headteacher Report to the Community

Headteacher’s Report to Parents 2024-2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

As we come to the close of the 2024–2025 academic year, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on what has been a truly memorable and rewarding year for Northstead Community Primary School. It has been a year filled with growth, learning, and countless moments of pride—as a school community, we have continued to move forward together with positivity, resilience, and a shared commitment to our children’s success and well-being.

From exciting new curriculum developments and enriching trips to achievements in sport, the arts, and beyond, our pupils have embraced every opportunity with enthusiasm and determination. Our dedicated staff have worked tirelessly to ensure each child is supported, challenged, and celebrated, and I am incredibly proud of all that we have achieved together.

This year saw the successful development of our approaches to reading and writing, which have already begun to show a positive impact on pupils’ confidence and outcomes. Our focus on inclusive learning and high expectations has remained central to our ethos, and we’ve seen children of all ages rise to challenges with a positive, determined and resilient mindset and real sense of pride in their learning.

We’ve also enjoyed a wealth of experiences beyond the classroom—from residentials and educational visits to performances, assemblies, and community events. These moments help shape the whole child and create the memories that make school life so special. It has been particularly heartening to see so many of you at school events this year, sharing in your children’s successes and strengthening the home-school partnership that is so vital to their development.

As always, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to you—our parents and carers—for your ongoing support, encouragement, and collaboration. Your engagement makes a real difference, and together, we create the nurturing, ambitious environment that defines Northstead.

To those families whose children are moving on to secondary school, we send our very best wishes for the exciting journey ahead. You leave Northstead with our pride and support, and we know you will continue to flourish.

Finally, I wish all of our children, families, and staff a safe, restful, and happy summer break. We look forward to welcoming you back in September for another exciting year of learning and growing together.

Please read on for further information about 2024-2025 and what to look forward to in 2025-2026.

Warm regards,

Shaun Hopper

Above National Averages!

I am absolutely delighted to share some fantastic news with you about the progress our school has made over the past few years.

At the end of Key Stage Two this year, our children achieved results in Reading, Writing, and Maths (RWM) combined that are above the national average. Even more impressively, this marks a 47+% improvement in outcomes compared to just three years ago – a truly remarkable achievement for our whole school community.

This progress is something we can all be incredibly proud of. It reflects the hard work and commitment of our staff, the dedication and resilience of our pupils, and the support and encouragement from you – our families. We have worked together to build a culture of high expectations, and the results are now speaking for themselves.

Over the past few years, we’ve made some important changes to how we teach and support children in reading, writing, and maths. We’ve introduced targeted support where needed, focused on building confidence, and worked hard to make learning engaging and meaningful for all our pupils. Most importantly, we’ve helped our children believe in themselves and their potential.

Thank you for everything you have done to support your child’s learning. Whether it’s helping with reading at home, encouraging good learning habits, or working with us during parents’ evenings and school events – your partnership has made a real difference.

We are incredibly proud of the children for what they’ve achieved, and we will continue working hard to make sure every child at Northstead is supported to succeed and flourish.

Over the summer…

Over the summer, if passing by you may see significant works taking place at the front of our building. We have been lucky to have been granted a significant amount of money from the DFE conditions grant to finally fix a long-standing problem with the front of our historic building. This will mean that the building will finally become waterproof, offices will be cleaned, walls fixed and decorated, as will the staff room. This will hopefully make a huge difference to the central area of school.

We have just had a boiler check completed and they say they are working fine! I’m keeping all fingers and toes crossed that our problems with boilers that have meant school closing in each of the last two years are now passed us!

Other points of note over the holidays.

• The KS2 exit gate (where there is always a jam to leave) is being extended by over two metres to allow easier entry and exit from the playground.

The work has already started!

• The KS2 bike shed is not being reconstructed. Instead, there will be a bike area on the KS2 top playground with metal barriers in place for children to lock their bikes up.

Staffing at Northstead

In September, there will be a number of staffing changes, many of which have already been shared with you in our newsletters or as part of class dojo communication.

While many staff are moving on to new roles or retiring, new staff will be joining our community – looking to make a significant difference to the education of our children.

Joining School in September 2025

Clair Ferguson – Office Manager
Blyss Walker – Y6 Teacher
Megan Ahmed – Y4 Teacher
Hannah Johnson – Y2 Teacher
Kim Didcock – Extended Schools Leader
Molly Sheader – Higher Level Teaching Assistant
Shaun Ratchford – Cleaner
Lesley Thompson – Cleaner

We also recently welcomed Miss Scarlett Johnson back to school following maternity leave. Miss Johnson will work in year 4 alongside Mrs Viney.

Our Sensory Nook is Officially Open!

We are thrilled to announce the official opening of Northstead Community Primary School’s brand-new Sensory Nook — a calming, inclusive space designed to support children’s emotional and sensory needs.

The Nook was opened by rugby player and coach Darren Fearn and has already become a valuable resource for pupils who benefit from a quiet, nurturing environment during the school day.

This fantastic project was made possible thanks to the Wooden Spoon Charity—the children’s charity of rugby—which provided major funding. Wooden Spoon supports life-changing projects across the UK for children with disabilities or facing disadvantage. We’re honoured to be part of their incredible work.

We’d also like to say a huge thank you to:

• HGM Property, who built the summer house free of charge
• Calverts Carpets, for donating and fitting flooring and artificial grass
• SALT Charity, Boyes, Hares Engineering, and Cooplands Bakers for their generous support

But our biggest thanks go to the amazing Mrs. Tracy Squire, who led this project from start to finish with incredible care and determination.

Tracy has also been nominated for a BBC Make a Difference Award in the category of fundraiser and is set to take in an afternoon tea at an awards ceremony in September. We will keep everything crossed for her to win!

Behaviour and Actions Taken

We are proud to say that our expectations of children’s behaviour and their attitudes to learning continue to improve. So much so that other schools – not even local ones are visiting our school to see our systems, our procedures and our children in action. Showing what it means to be the best that we can be.

Despite having all of our excellent support systems in place, where children do not meet our expectations, we take action and where needed move beyond our behaviour policy to our suspension and exclusion policy.

We want to make it clear to all our community that we do not tolerate violent or abusive behaviour in our school nor do we allow children to persistently disrupt the learning of others.

2025-2026 – What to look forward to…

Aside from having incredible staff giving children an amazing education, we will also be looking forward to this in 2025-2026…

Throughout 2025-2026, two sports coaches from Nigel Carson Sports will be offering sporting opportunities every lunchtime for children in years 3 to 6. Look out for information about these opportunities.

Mr Wormald will be offering a lunchtime computing club throughout the whole of next year. This will be offered to certain year groups at certain times.

Our library will be open every lunchtime from 1230-1255 for children to read, enjoy learning about books and take part on other book related activities.

We will again be offering a musical theatre production in 2025-2026 – this will be open to children in years 4 to 6.

Children in KS2 will visit North Yorkshire Water Park in June 2026.

EYFS and KS1 children will enjoy speedkix sessions or another adventurous activity in June 2026.

Rock Kidz UK will visit Northstead again in November 2025. Their theme this year will be Anti-Bullying.

Most children in year 6 will visit Peat Rigg Outdoor Education Centre in October.

Class and Year Group Attendance Winners

Well done to class 12 who are this year’s attendance winners by 0.13%!!!

Year Three were the year group attendance winners in 2024-2025.

Attendance and Term-Time Holiday Requests

Attendance has improved from to 93.78% at Northstead in 2024-2025 but remains 1% below the national average.

Ofsted noted in the recent monitoring inspection that ‘leaders are taking effective action to improve attendance,’ acknowledging the positive steps taken so far.”

However, this area of school is still below national average and we need our community to come together to ensure our attendance level increases to a minimum of 95% average attendance next year.

Measures that will be put in place next year

• All parents will receive a fortnightly update in terms of their child’s attendance (this will be similar to the attendance report sent at the end of this academic year).
• School leaders have set a stricter timeline for implementation of the process for issuing fines for persistent absence (below 90%) attendance.

This year, a number of fines and prosecutions took place in relation to children with a high persistent and regular absence.

Missing school regularly means children miss out on important learning steps within our curriculum.

New Rules around term-time holidays

In 2024-2025, Northstead children lost 579 days of learning due to term-time holidays being taken.

While we appreciate the importance of holidays for families and the special time that this can being for many, The following will be applied to all term-time holiday requests with the Headteacher’s decision being final.

• Holidays will not be authorised if a leave of absence form is not handed to the office before going on holiday
• Holidays may not be authorised for any child with attendance below 90% in the previous academic year
• Holidays may not be authorised for any child who has attendance below 90% in the current academic year

Attendance under 90% is classed as being persistently absent from school.

Holidays will only be authorised in exceptional circumstances and this is solely at the discretion of the Headteacher.

No evidence with the form = unauthorised.

The Headteacher’s decision is final on all leave of absence requests.