Archibald First School, Gosforth, Newcastle Upone Tyne | Having fun, learning together

Dear families,

Thank you for your responses to our annual parents’ questionnaire. We were really pleased to receive 93 responses from parents and carers of 113 children in our school and, for the second year in a row, a 4.78 out of 5-star rating!

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; this is shown through the array of comments you included in your responses and the numerical data.

We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with you as a school community. Thank you for the time taken to share your voice with us.

The Archibald Team

WHAT IS THE SCHOOL DOING WELL?

SUM UP ARCHIBALD IN 3 WORDS

YOUR COMMENTS

We have always felt that Archibald offers safety, support and nurture, but this year has been exceptional. Communication between us and the school is excellent, at times going above and beyond to ensure that our child is ok. The whole atmosphere created by Archibald is like one big cuddle.

Would highly recommend it’s a fantastic school and community

Great nurturing environment and community

Excellent experience with both children, they have been happy and also developed educationally and socially

Genuinely cares for its pupils and families.

It’s amazing, so many creative and memorable classroom experiences!

Is a Nurturing and caring school. Each child is valued.

The staff are all amazing and that’s what I think makes the school so lovely to drop my children off at every day.

I couldn’t ask for a better school environment with a welcoming atmosphere from the top down.

Archibald is a school that is always striving to be the best in the education field. There is always room for growth, the staff listens to parents’ concerns and the children are their focal point. We are very lucky to be part of this school.

The kids get loads of interesting visits and activities, the teachers are all excellent and genuinely care about the children. The leadership are approachable and transparent.

Fantastic support for those with additional needs

My child is happy at school and I feel is well supported. The teaching staff is
fantastic and they really do everything they can for the children

It is outstanding in every way and I tell everyone

Fantastic play equipment at break times. Really supportive of emotional wellbeing of the children as above, my child’s learning is well supported and I can see that the staff work hard to develop an individualised approach to his learning

A school where your daughter wakes up early every morning excited to go to school is school to be proud of. The hard work of all the staff to make the school an enjoyable, safe and caring place really shows in day on day.

My daughter is very happy at school. I think the school has a strong focus on emotional and social development which is appropriate for her age. She is also learning fast academically particularly phonics/ reading.

Staff are highly invested in pupils’ well-being and our child often describes how they have been engaged with, praised, and encouraged.

I can see how much the teachers care during drop off and pick up. Teachers are so warm and caring.

My child has special needs and the level of care provided by all the staff who work with him is fantastic. They adapt to his needs, wants and likes and always keep me updated on his day at the end of each day

Excellent teachers who go above and beyond

It is current and relevant to my child’s life. It’s enhanced by trips, visits and visitors which makes learning memorable.

A wonderful holistic approach towards the children’s education.

The curriculum offers a variety of learning opportunities to explore and extend children’s knowledge and curiosity. Trips, visitors and special days.

I am amazed at how much you fit in. And how much of it the young people later recall and understand. Outstanding.

Questionnaire for Parents and Carers: Results May 2024

WHAT COULD THE SCHOOL CONSIDER TO IMPROVE?

OUTDOOR SPACE

• More grassed areas for sport (appreciate can’t due to space!)
• Had a grass pitch, some outdoor sport facilities, maybe less hazardous tarmac
• It had a pool.
• Sports Day
• Outside Area

We couldn’t agree more – we would love more outdoor space including a field. If we could have this, we would.

Sports Days are held every year and are coming up in June – please check the calendar for dates. We have liaised with GJA to use their field but due to commitments, we could only use this for some of the sports days. We therefore decided to decline its use so that it was fair for all the year groups.

If you know of any outdoor grassed space that we could use safely, please do let us know.

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EXTENDING SCHOOL

• My child could stay forever
• It went up to year 6
• They would introduce Years 5,6 & 7
• An after-school club that runs until 6pm

We would love to keep our children and families for another few years and thank you for being so positive about us. Luckily, we have super middle schools in Gosforth for your children to move on to.

Our afterschool club is privately run. Due to our site managers contracted hours, school is fully locked up for the evening at 6pm which does mean that all children and staff need to be off the premises before 6pm.

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ARCHIBALD STREET

• The road was closed to traffic at school pick up and drop off
• The street was exempt from parent parking. Obviously out of your control….

We will continue to advocate for our families to walk, scoot or cycle to/from school and to ask that those families who need to use the car, to park away from Archibald Street.

We have a new contact at the LA who we are working with to address traffic and parking issues on the street too.

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COMMUNICATION

• The communication was addressed (prioritised, planned, paced) as a whole.
• Communications via email/ text/ tapestry were streamlined
• School comms were a bit more consistent

We know there is a lot, however, it is shared with the best of intentions to keep you informed. We try to send out in bulk but often something else comes into our inbox that needs to be sent out just after we have sent a communication out to you. Argh!

We will trial a 2.30pm email / text drop to endeavour to send all communication out in one go.

We will attempt to stick with our aims of:

• Asking you to use, and check weekly, the website for key dates and events.
• No letters/messages/updates/reminders will be shared via Seesaw or Tapestry.
• Letters will continue to be emailed and added to the school website.
• Asking you to check the ‘Whole School’ letters page and the relevant year group page for your child/children
• Using digital return forms
• Not sending paper forms out

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EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

• More afterschool clubs
• More extra-curricular after school clubs available to reception.

We are really proud of our extra-curricular offer and continue to add to the list as we work to provide a variety to cater for all ages and interests.

If you have a company or know a provider which could run a club for Archibald, please do get in touch with us. Any recommendations would be great. We have recently reached out to a code club provider and we are more than happy to try to expand our offer where it is feasible.

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CURRICULUM

• There would be some flexibility re Forest School days.  For example- could be moved flexibly to a different day of the week when we the weather is expected to be bad on the planned day. This would prevent some classes to miss out almost entire terms on Forest School.
• When the much-awaited outdoor school trips fall onto a day with very bad weather it would be good to either have a plan B or more flexibility for rescheduling the trip so that the children can really enjoy the day.
• There were more opportunities to engage with MFL in EYFS – though I doubt this is easy to achieve!
• They learnt more about nature – what about a trip to the Northumberland wildlife trust or the Gosforth nature reserve?

We hate cancelling our forest school sessions as much as the children do. They are cancelled based on the risk assessment require to run these sessions safely and the main cause of cancellation is the wind strength. As the two forest school staff have other commitments in school, as do the classes, rescheduling is much harder than it may seem.

For next year, we have made the decision to not run forest school in autumn 2 or spring 1 which was when we had to cancel more sessions this year.

Rearranging visits is also a really hard job as we often have to book the venues and travel well in advance. We also cannot anticipate our lovely British weather ☹

EYFS take part in Spanish sessions through songs and rhymes through the year.  We employ Senora Dunlop as a specialist language teacher and she works with Year 1-4. Modern Foreign Languages are compulsory for Year 3 upwards so we are very pleased to be able to incorporate this into the curriculum for all year groups.

Watch out for the whole school summer 2 topic ‘How can I give the world a hug?’ After learning all about our world through the geography and history units; the children will then be looking at how we can look after our world. Each year group has science units dedicate to plants / animals / living things. Thank you for the ideas for the visits for 2024-2025!! If anyone else has visited somewhere that could provide a great learning experience for our children, please do share!

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NEW CLASSES

In response to a comment about classes being mixed, we mix the classes based on friendships, working dynamics and aim to create a balance between the two classes of ability and gender.

Please do come and speak to us directly if you have any further questions or comments regarding this.

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EVENTS

• It had fewer non uniform days. The kids can appreciate ‘tree day’ or ‘Spanish day’ or well-being or Christmas movies without being no uniform
• Maybe a few more dress up/ own clothes day to support charity everts (Pudsey bear, comic relief) /world book day. Both my children love to dress up and love a PJ day at school.

We do, and will continue to, try to find a balance. As a school, we made the decision to move away from ‘fancy dress days’ to reduce the need/pressure to buy costumes for ‘one off’ events whilst considering the cost of such investments.

Any non-uniform day is optional and children are more than welcome to wear their uniform as normal.

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