Joseph Hood Primary School

We are a two‐form entry primary school providing high quality teaching in a warm and inspiring environment.At Joseph Hood Primary School we have a clear goal when it comes to education: we strive to ensure that all children feel happy, valued and experience success. In addition to achieving academically, we encourage our children to become informed members of society and to take an active role in their own development and learning throughout their life.

Our school motto is ‘be the best you can” and we enable this by providing a strong curriculum and teaching as well as a range of activities and opportunities both during the school day and at afterschool clubs. We work hard to create a positive atmosphere where children understand the importance of taking responsibility for their actions. We have a firm commitment to the equality of opportunity for all members of the school community and the promotion of good relationships, enabling all children to achieve success. We value all people regardless of race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, gender, culture or religion and everyone connected with our school in any capacity must accept and respect this principle. At Joseph Hood Primary School we believe every child must be provided with opportunities to develop socially, emotionally, academically and physically, to achieve the highest possible standards. Our vision is to inspire and for our children and our staff to be the best you can.

Children are admitted to the Nursery the term after their third birthday. Children attend Nursery for either a morning or afternoon session. Each session can take up to 26 children. Children are admitted to Primary School in the September of the academic year that they turn 5. Our maximum admission into any one year group is 60.All prospective parents are very welcome to come and look around the school – just call into the office or phone to make an appointment.

Once children have been allocated a place, we will contact parents to set up a series of meetings. You and your child will have the opportunity to spend time in the class and meet the teacher and teaching assistants, which will hopefully reassure your child and yourself. Our priority is to help settle your child happily into school life.Pupils will be admitted in accordance with the priorities set out in Merton’s Council Admissions Policy.

ere at Joseph Hood Primary School, we believe that our children are the most important people and we endeavour to give ALL children lots of opportunities to share their thoughts and opinions and play an active role in the decisions that affect their learning and well-being.We have lots of ways that the children can do this formally, such as through the school council and pupil questionnaires. We also have an ethos that allows the children to regularly share their views in an informal way.

Joseph Hood School seeks to nurture the whole child and to help them grow into engaged and motivated members of society. We want our pupils to become lifelong learners, who take their education seriously and who achieve their goals. We work from and develop the National Curriculum to meet our children's needs, ensuring all our pupils receive a broad and balanced curriculum.

We are fully committed to the partnership between home, school and the community, working together to support children to achieve success. We value the communication and partnership and encourage parents and carers to become involved in a broad range of school activities.

As a whole Governing Body we meet once a half term, so our main work is carried out within committees: Finance, Teaching and Learning, Pay and Performance and Marketing. We will use this area of the website to keep you informed about our current work and priorities.We are always looking for new skills and ideas about how we can improve, so if you can offer a particular expertise to the governing body, to support our work, then please contact the office to find out how you can get involved.

Our school library is a bright and inspiring place where the children enjoy browsing, reading and borrowing from a wide collection of books. Here is a bright and cosy space where we take our shoes off, pad around and just enjoy books. The walls are hand painted with images of the BFG, Winnie the Pooh and other loved characters from children’s literature.

At Joseph Hood we have high aspirations and ambitions for our children and we believe that no child should be left behind. We are determined to ensure that our children are given every chance to realise their full potential and aspire to be the ‘Be the Best You Can.The Government believes that the Pupil Premium, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their wealthier peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the pupils who need it most. It is for schools to decide how the Pupil Premium, allocated to schools per FSM pupil, is spent, since they are best placed to assess what additional provision should be made for the individual pupils within their responsibility. However they will be held accountable for how they have used the additional funding to support pupils from low income families.