Leaderships Introduction

Welcome to Shakespeare Primary School! 

Shakespeare Primary School serves a school family of 420 pupils, from Reception to Year 6, within Honicknowle, Plymouth.  We also have a nursery unit for three to four year olds, which has 52 part-time places (15 hours per week) and 10 full-time places, for pupils eligible for 30 hours of funding.  We take 60 Reception pupils each year, who start with us in the year in which they become five years old.

Shakespeare Primary School is part of the Learning Academies Trust.  Together, we share commitments that every child deserves an outstanding education, that schools work most effectively when they work together and that every school in our Trust is unique and should serve the needs of its own local community.  In addition, we share the aim that we will not let social disadvantage be an obstacle to success. We know that with great leadership, inspirational teaching, caring pastoral support and hard work, every child in every school can succeed.

Our modern buildings enable us to offer our pupils and their families a wide variety of educational provision.  Our youngest children (three to five year olds) work within an open-plan unit offering an enabling environment for nursery and reception children to learn through play through the Foundation Stage Curriculum.  This vibrant and stimulating setting is surrounded by a large, secure outdoor play area, which is used daily, in all weathers, as part of their learning experiences.  

Our building is fantastic! The modern design incorporates the latest thinking in planning and layout, building standards and information technology. The classroom furniture and many of the classroom resources are specifically designed and selected to complement the new National Curriculum (2014). Specialist teaching areas such as the school hall, drama and music studios and the ‘Enquiry Zone’ support the teaching of a 21st century curriculum. Outdoor facilities include secure, open play spaces, outdoor classrooms, sports field, allotments for gardening, an amphitheatre and a wildlife pond.

Our children make good progress from their starting points and the majority achieve their learning milestones.  They enjoy a full and varied range of learning activities, presented through a thematic curriculum, which is enhanced through visiting authors, artists, sports and inspirational people.  We make learning exciting and regularly taking our learning outside, making good use of our outdoor spaces on site, as well as making regular trips to Woodland Woods and Ham Woods.  We offer three residential trips, currently to Dartmoor Training Centre in Year 4, Bachelor’s Hall, Princetown in Year 5 and Grenville House, Brixham in Year 6, as well as a wide range of day trips for children from Nursery to Year 6.

 As part of our school provision, we offer an on-site Breakfast Club daily, which runs from 7.45am to 8.45am.  Through our partnership with The After-School Club in Honicknowle, we can offer extended child-care until 6.00pm.

We believe that parents and carers are their child’s most important educator and we seek to support you, as you help your child through their next steps in learning.  We offer support for learning through a variety of Parent Learning opportunities, such as monthly Stay and Play sessions for pre-nursery children, Phonics is Fun, Reading without Books, and Summer Circuits.  We can also support with Maths homework in later years, amongst providing other opportunities for you to visit us throughout the year.  Our Parent Support Adviser offers a confidential and personalised service to support parents with any parenting queries, no matter how small, and can help to signpost to appropriate services if required.

We offer our website as a way of providing information for our school family, for celebrating our school's achievements and those of our pupils.  I hope you will take some time to browse and enjoy the highlights of our school and discover the many activities and learning opportunities our pupils are involved in at school. You can also find some important policies and documents.  Parents are able to access Parentview online and add comments about the school; you can follow the link here and see what people are saying about Shakespeare Primary School.   

If you have any further questions or would like to visit our school and see us ‘learning at our best’, please contact our school office, where we will endeavour to help you.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Cameron Lancaster                  Mr Ben Norris

Executive Headteacher                  Head of School