School Development

A Timeline of School Development

This page tracks our amazing journey since September 2021, after emerging from the COVID pandemic and disruption. At Leigh Primary we are committed to ensuring that our pupils have have best we can offer and with the support of our community our school has transformed and is continuing to change is response to the needs of our students. We are a small school, but we dream big.

January 2024

Outdoor Learning Training for all staff is commencing this term as we move towards teaching a range of curriculum subjects in our outdoor classroom. Planning permission has been submitted to install a decked classroom and we are waiting for review to action further development to this area.	Pictures coming soon!
	Our second hand uniform online store has been launched. This is part of our commitment to being more sustainable and recycling old uniform and ensuring all families have the option to obtain uniform at reasonable prices. All funds processed are directed to the PTA.
Our new musical instruments have arrived! We are so excited to be integrating a range of better quality instruments into classrooms as we make music in line with our progressive music curriculum.	Pictures coming soon!
	Members of our team will be commencing ELSA training this term. This supports delivering group work to support children with social and emotional development.
The school has invested in Dyslexia Gold to support children who their literacy development. It is a programme regularly recommended by Specialist Dyslexic Assessors and we will be utilising it to support children with this specific need in addition to our universal and targeted practices.

November/December 2023

Our new storage has arrived for PE equipment that needs relocation after a kitchen install. In addition, storage for playgrounds that the school council and EYFS team will be filling with amazing resources for lunchtime fun and learning.	Our New access control has been installed for Jessica's Hall and on some other parts of the school site to ensure increased security and safety for our children.
Pictures coming soon!	Pictures coming soon!
The PTA have funded a beautiful Pre-lit realistic Leigh Christmas Tree. Children will make a decoration to adorn the tree every year and get to take it home at the end. What a special addition to our newly decorated school hall.	New curtains have been installed in the school hall to replace the rather dated ones. Naturally in the Leigh colours.
Pictures coming soon!	Pictures coming soon!
VR Workshops have begun to be delivered to KS2. All children in KS2 will get to travel back in time and all over the world to bring their history and geography curriculum alive 3 times a year. This will occur yearly to provide our children with a rich and memorable experiences.	Our RE Workshops commenced. Yearly children will engage with a tangible workshop with artefacts and expert teachers. Over the course of their school career they will have enjoyed 6 workshops on 6 worldviews/religions to enrich their units of study taught weekly.
Pictures coming soon!	Pictures coming soon!
Otter Class cloakroom has been refurbished. This has involved new lockers being installed for the children, painting, creation of a cupboard for resources and a small intervention space for 1:1/2 working with children. Our site manager has been very busy. Thank you Mr Draper!
Pictures coming soon!

October 2023

	Consultants have provided training to our staff on delivering our new Sing Up Music Curriculum as well as the teaching of singing in singing assembly. We have begun teaching units from this engaging new scheme. Throughout the year will be having further training and investment in music instruments and incorporating into lessons as well as teaching whole class recorder. Choir Lunchtime Club has begun too!
Our Floor was installed in the School Hall. It is making the world of difference and has really improved the dining environment. In addition, the school hall has been refurbished with a new disabled access toilet, painting, and reinstallation of our climbing frame for gymnastics. Not only this, our amazing new catering tables have arrived in 3 heights for all ages of our children. They love them! Much better than trestle tables and benches. Many thanks to the generous donations that have made this possible.	Pictures coming soon!
Pictures coming soon!	Our orienteering curriculum was given a boost with training from Greenacre this month as well as visits from the Problem Solving Company to provide orienteering workshops to our children. They had so much fun up at the field learning skills and our team enjoyed the exciting beginning of this new curriculum.
Training and provision of Reciprocal Reading to groups of pupils has begun. It is structured, discussion based approach to teach comprehension and provides extra support to help children understand a range of texts. This is in addition to our reading curriculum. This helps children who need an extra boost use strategies to make send of what they read and become more confident, independent readers.

September 2023

We are implementing Year 2 Spelling programme from Little Wandle this term. It supports children to build the alphabetic code as a seamless step from core Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Programme in Year 1. It follows a familiar structure building on prior knowledge. There are comprehensive teaching notes, resources and assessment to ensure we can track children and swiftly intervene to ensure progress. We are also investing in new reading books to further challenge the children as they progress towards Key Stage 2.
All children in Year 6 will complete Bikeability with Kent instructors every year. This is to ensure they have the opportunity to learn the skills to keep themselves safe on the road as they travel to Secondary School or begin to independently travel to alternative locations.
New handwriting scheme - Kinetic Letters		Music consultant from Kent Music will be supporting the school with training and development in the teaching of Music

		Makaton Training

New MFL Scheme - Kapow	New orienteering curriculum training and implementation

Emma's Kitchen have begun cooking meals for us and will be cooking fresh meals from site very soon in our new kitchen. The reaction of the children has been wonderful and they are finding the new provision delicious!

August 2023

Some of our windows have been replaced and the program of installing new windows will continue throughout the Autumn Term and in the Easter Holidays so the building is fully insulated and ventilated for all seasons.

Our kitchen is being installed into Jessica's Hall.

Pictures coming soon!

July 2023

New benches and parasols have been installed in our new playground space so children can enjoy games, drawing and construction activities. Also a wonderful place for adults to work with groups of children.

Our new library was opened. It is such an incredible space and we are elated to provide a library to our school community. Please click here for the story of Emma's Library.

June 2023

Our new EYFS barn was installed to provide an additional sheltered outdoor learning space for our youngest children. Additionally, renovations across EYFS have created zoned spaces, a home area and creative space for children to learn and play.

Pictures coming soon!

May 2023

Our School Council were democratically elected this month by the students of the school. They are going to regularly meet with School Leaders to inform us of the views of the pupil body. An exciting new development for our school to make the students part of the leadership team.

Our crowd fund was launched to raise money for our new kitchen so meals can be cooked freshly on site by our new caterer - Emma's Kitchen.

April 2023

In April new fencing was installed across the front of the school to provide a screened play space for children at lunchtime to play and socialise. This is the first stage on our playground redevelopment, which the School Council are leading upon.

Pictures coming soon!

Over Easter we installed fencing around our pond dipping platform, and forestry works in our Forest School Area, in preparation for our plans to install an outdoor classroom in this wonderful space.

Pictures coming soon!

March 2023

In March the PTA and an anonymous donor kindly funded developments to our Mezzanine area. The area is a multifunctional space as a small classroom, area for group work, regulation space and has a sensory area. A wonderful facility for our children.

February 2023

In February we introduced our own wrap around care, every day in the mornings (Larks) from 7:30am which included breakfast and after school Tuesday to Thursday until 5:30 or 6pm (Owls). This is operated by school staff and registration is through the school office. For more information click here.

January 2023

Zones of Regulation was implemented in January. This is a way to support children to identify how they are feeling and what strategies to use to move between different zones - therefore teaching them to self-regulate. For more information about the Zones of Regulation please click here

Accelerated Reader was introduced in January which enables teachers to target instruction and accelerate reading growth for students of all ability levels as well as supporting teachers to monitor and manage independent reading practice.

AR has the ability to:

Personalise and guide independent reading practice.
Develop lifelong readers and learners.
Tap into unlimited access to all quizzes and enjoy online support.
Increase school-to-home communications.

We believe that reading development is a combination of explicit teaching as well as lots of practice! AR encourages differentiated reading practice to create strong readers. For more information about Accelerated Reader click here.

At Leigh we teach Games, Gymnastics and Dance. Over the last 2 years staff have been trained to teach Dance by Cascade. Since we have adopted their primary scheme of learning.

December 2022

We began whole class reading comprehension using Ashley Booth teaching resources combined with VIPERS reading skills. Each KS2 classes completes 3 x 30 minute sessions a week of whole class reading comprehension.

October 2022

In the Autumn Term we consulted with parents about Personal Development and what they consider to be priorities for our children. We reviewed and implemented a Personal Development Policy which explains our intent, implementation and desired impact for our children. This includes Sex, Relationships and Health Education (SRHE), Personal Social Health Education, British Values and our guiding principles of ACT RIGHT. Health includes physical, mental and safety on and offline. This included implementing a new scheme of learning for SRHE and included other practices such as Votes for School implemented in September. For more information about personal development please click here.

From October we began to combine our Votes for School based assembly procedures with a book assembly every Friday which includes a reflections and encourages the children to derive meaning and think about how the message applies to them, their family or community. Children enjoy stories, learn from them and they make messages memorable and meaningful. To find out more about the books we read each week please click here. Additionally, see below some of the stories the children have engaged with which incorporate themes of body confidence, bullying, identity, Special Educational Needs, Feelings and regulation, resilience, environmental issues, poverty, mental health, online safety, equality and National Events such as Remembrance and the Coronation.

September 2022

Many new initiative and programs were introduced in September 2022 linked to a range of areas of the curriculum and personal development.

Mastering number is a curriculum for Early Years and Key Stage 1 that supports development of good number sense for all children. The aim is that over time children leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and a confidence and flexibility with number. Attention is given to key knowledge and understanding needed in Reception classes and progression through KS1 to support success in the future. This program is in addition to the full White Rose Mathematics Mastery Curriculum taught across KS1 and into KS2. The school invested in Rekenrek counting frames and Numberblock resources for this program which supports conceptual understanding and engagement in these short daily sessions.

At this time we also invested in our maths areas across all classrooms to ensure that children had access to a wealth of manipulatives to support their independent work and conceptual understanding.

For more information about our mathematics curriculum please click here.

Kapow DT scheme of work for Design and Technology was implemented in September to provide a progressive scheme that enabled children to engage with a range of projects across their school career including: mechanisms, structures, electrical systems, food and nutrition, textiles and digital world. In each unit children explore design, experimentation, construction and evalulation of their products. To find out more about or DT curriculum click here.

Access art was implemented to ensure that children were provided with rich opportunities to engage and appraise a range of artists, craftsmen and women from across the globe and enable them to respond creatively to the work of others and create their own works of art. For more information about our Art curriculum please click here.



Marvellous Me was implemented for the purposes of communicating purely positive feedback about your children on a weekly basis and to share their successes with you. Marvellous Me is a wonderful app that pings parents with news of their children's learning and praises their achievements. For more information click here.	Votes for School was implemented as the basis of our collective worship procedures which provides reflection on a range of questions that impact the children as individuals and develops their ability to form their own opinions, express them and grow their knowledge on a range of National and Global issues. The children explore a question over 2 or 3 assemblies per week which engage them in discussion and reflection over issues relating to the environment, mental health, politics, online safety and much more. Underpinning most topics is the British Values of: Democracy, Rule of Law, Mutual Respect, Tolerance/Acceptance and Individual Liberty as well as principles that support the Prevent Strategy. Some of the questions explored are below. For more information click here.
	Will the lionesses get more girls playing football? Would you want to be Prime Minister right now? Do you feel comfortable with change? Can the fashion industry slow down its impact on the environment? Are actions more important than words? Should everyone learn BSL? Can science fix the world's problems? Do you know what disrespect looks like? Should we learn more about what young carers do?	Should we do more to protect our oceans? Is it easy to set boundaries? Does the internet change the way we feel about ourselves? Do we know enough about how vaping affects people? Should everyone be able to vote at 16? Is it difficult to stand up against bullying? Was awarding the World Cup to Qatar a mistake? Do we get enough rest? Should influencers be responsible for our online safety?
We also implemented our RE scheme at the start of the year to provide weekly Religious Education taught in pure cohorts. This scheme sequentially builds on learning of the main world religions and encourages reflection over beliefs, practices and ways of living and expressing faith. The scheme encourages children to make links and identify similarities and key differences to ensure that children are knowledgeable regarding the beliefs of others, can develop curiosity and importantly tolerance. We combined this with ensuring that every year group visits a place of worship or receives a visit to learn about another belief system each year of their school career to provide tangible, positive and memorable experiences relating to this area of the curriculum. For more information about religious education please click here.	KS1 visit to Canterbury Cathedral	Buddhism Workshop for Year 5

July 2022

In July the school purchased Our Greenacre PE Scheme for Games to provide a clear progression knowledge and skills. Our Greenacre scheme is taught by our Sport's coach with the class teachers. The success of our curriculum means we have a strong football and netball team who take part in school tournaments and competitions across Kent.

During the Summer Dolphin Class (Year 3 and 4) was refurbished in line with our prior refurbishments.

Pictures coming soon!

May 2022

Ark Mastery Curriculum was implemented to provide a well-sequenced, knowledge rich curriculum which ensured that children could sequentially develop their knowledge and understanding in History and Geography. In addition, large wall maps were introduced and new Atlas sets across the school to ensure that children could develop their locational knowledge securely with the appropriate resources. We began teaching in pure year groups for one day a week to ensure secure progression.

To find out more about our geography curriculum click hereTo find out more about our history curriculum click here:

April 2022

In April we invested in the KS2 book corners to ensure that all classes had a class library with age appropriate high quality literature organised by genre so that children could locate texts that interested them. In addition, we wanted to promote reading for pleasure but also in the pursuit of knowledge. Therefore we installed display bookcases where reference texts related to the curriculum could be displayed and cycled throughout the year so that children had reading opportunities to extend and deepen their understanding across the curriculum.

We also refurbished Turtle Classroom where our Year 1 and some of our Year 2 children are taught. This refurbishment was in line with our ambitions to ensure that classrooms are neutral and calming in design, wooden flooring for hygiene and cleanliness reasons and energy efficiency by installing LED lighting.

Pictures coming soon!

January 2022

With the support from our PTA and Parish Council the school invested heavily in refurbishing all book corners as well as high quality literature for our Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes. Each of these classrooms had a cosy, inviting space for children to locate a wide range of fiction and non-fiction tailored to their interest, curriculum and abilities.


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In addition the Reception Classroom was painted, had new flooring installed, LED lighting, a kitchen area and educational furniture. This is in line with our commitment to design being in neutral calming colours and reducing plastic by storing resources in wicker baskets.

October 2021

Implemented Little Wandle Phonics Scheme which helps children to read an quickly as possible. so they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading. We have now fully embedded this scheme maintaining pace, practice and participation by all children. Any children who are not keeping-up with their peers receive timely additional practice to that no child is left behind. To find out more about our Phonics and Early Reading Curriculum please click here.

September 2021

New Senior Leadership Team formed

Ofsted Inspection and targets

The teaching of phonics is not providing all pupils with the opportunity to learn to read. Pupils who are falling behind are not yet supported to catch up by working with highly trained teaching staff. Leaders should implement their plans for improving phonics teaching without delay. This includes checking that staff follow the agreed sequence and methodology for teaching phonics.
The curriculum plans for all subjects do not yet precisely outline what should be taught and when it should be taught. Pupils are not building a coherent understanding within the subjects they are taught. Leaders should carefully refine their curriculum plans to identify the specific content that is taught within each subject. Leaders should also carefully consider the order in which it is taught so that pupils are supported to know more, remember more and do more as a result of the taught curriculum.
Staff have not received sufficient training to plan and deliver an ambitious curriculum for all pupils. Pupils’ learning of the wider curriculum is inconsistent across the school. Leaders should provide training for all staff to help all pupils make consistently strong progress across all subject areas.