Whitefield Primary School is proud to be an ARC learning hub and to have the opportunity to share the practice which has been transformative for the children, families and staff at our school.
Whitefield’s catchment is ranked as an area of high deprivation, in the bottom 1% of the most deprived wards in the country. The school has high levels of Special Educational needs (35%), EAL (42%) and deprivation (48% pupil premium) Many of our children live in challenging circumstances but we are determined to remove the barriers that these circumstances might bring. Our academic outcomes at the end of Year 6 are consistently above national. This demonstrates that our highly inclusive approach based on attachment sensitive principles gives our children the tools to access high quality learning and achieve their potential.
The school has twice been awarded the Gold Standard Attachment and Trauma Sensitive Schools (ATSS) Award which involves consideration of trauma-informed practice in recruitment and staff support and supervision as well as strengthening and embedding systemic practice with children. This 10 year journey through all stages of the award has involved a whole school training programme which was described by staff as both personally and professionally transformational in the way they view and support children. Senior Leaders identified that vulnerable children need calm consistency from all adults and so ensured that every member of staff regardless of role was part of the training.
Alongside a thorough review of environments and policies and practices to ensure that attachment practice was embedded in school systems and processes, this has shifted the way Whitefield structure and deliver all aspects of school life.
At Whitefield we are a family. We teach that in our Whitefield family we support and respect each other. This sense of belonging is key to our school. Our values of “Be here, be you, belong” are based on the work on Brene Brown and demonstrate what it means to be part of our Whitefield family:
It is a common myth that this approach is used as an excuse for poor behaviours. On the contrary, this actually means that a tight framework of expected behaviours is based on mutual respect which creates a safe and secure environment. Children and adults are expected to demonstrate behaviours which are respectful to others at all times, and mistakes in behaviour are used as teaching points to learn from rather than used as something which demonstrates a person’s character.
Our school is focused on 3 core values which underpin all aspects of school life and are known and lived by the children.
Children are taught how to self-regulate by using the zones of regulation and our explicit emotional literacy curriculum gives them the vocabulary to express their emotions. These are not just skills for school but skills for life.
In partnership with the Shine Trust we have developed a programme working with children and parents in EYFS which teaches parents/carers the skills and approaches used in school and enables them to use these strategies on the home. Feedback on this programme from parents/carers has been overwhelmingly positive and speaks of a shared language and understanding “We are now all speaking the same language, the whole family”.
A project funded by SHINE Trust Uk to develop Year 6-7 transition in response to high exclusion rates in Autumn term Year 7 is currently being developed and aims to support children and staff as they navigate one of the most significant changes in their educational journey.
“Whitefield Primary School is a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive organisation, which prioritises humanising systems, making them healthier, more relational and interpersonal, more integrated, more reflective, and more interconnected, not only focusing on the pupil population, but by ensuring that trauma-informed knowledge, language, values, principles, assumptions and processes are embedded deep into the culture of the organisation; and are owned and shaped by everyone who is a part, regardless of role” ATSS Gold Award Report
Whitefield was rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted in February 2024.
The report stated that ‘Pupils embody the school’s motto of ‘Be here, be you, belong’. They refer to the school as a place of hope where everyone is part of the Whitefield family.’
This is the voice of the lived experiences of the children at our school.
We are very proud of our ethos and values and look forward to sharing them with the wider ARC community and beyond.