Welcome to the Palmarsh School!

Welcome to Palmarsh Primary School’s very own website. We are a small primary school set in the community of Palmarsh on the outskirts of Hythe. We are an effective school who have been consistently praised for our caring and supportive ethos. Our results show we add good rates of value to our pupil’s progress and our overall results have been above the national average for the last two years in English, Maths and Science.

Please use this web site to find out a little more about us, and if you have a pre-school child and are thinking about where they should start their education, then feel free to contact us, make a visit and get a feel for the place.

For parents who have children at the school already please use this site to look at some of the work the children have been doing lately, catch up on recent newsletters and maybe join our forum and discuss any issue you care to about school policy or happenings.

Our first priority at Palmarsh Primary School is to try and ensure that each child feels safe, secure and happy. Only in that context of confidence do we believe that children flourish and grow, and make the best of the educational opportunities we present them with.

We aim to provide a school ethos, which reflects both a caring and considerate attitude to all our community's members. This is based upon the principle of mutual respect and courtesy, and is reinforced by a code of conduct that details the positive ways in which we expect the children to behave. We will use the times together in school to talk and worship in order to develop this positive ethos.

We wish in this and all matters, to have the full support and confidence of parents. To that end, we wish always to work with parents as partners to the common aim of providing what is best for each child. We are always open to meet with, and discuss, any issue that parents may wish to raise.

We believe that the school is a central part of the community, and we will work hard towards developing that community focus role. We work within a framework that recognises the principles of equality of opportunity. Those principles demand that individual difference of need are addressed, and wherever possible, met.

Therefore, the learning opportunities that we present children with, will as far as possible be designed to match individual children's needs. Every child is special, and will be treated as such. Some children, however, have needs that cannot be met within the context, or time scale available within the ordinary classroom. Those children identified as having Special Needs, will be supported within the guidelines of our Special Needs Policy and the Government Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs. In all such cases, parental involvement will be sought and encouraged.

We aim to offer every child access to a broad and balanced curriculum, which meets the requirements of the National Curriculum, and aims to present it within a context that is relevant, realistic and purposeful. Our priorities are literacy and numeracy, and we will ensure that each child is given the opportunity to make as much progress as possible within these two key areas. Every child comes to us with a range of different experiences, abilities and talents. Our aim is to develop each child educationally, as far as that individual is able to go. We will build upon strengths, and support and develop areas where a child may not be so confident or competent. To do this, we have assessment procedures that allow us to plan, as closely as possible, to match individual needs across the whole curriculum.

We aim to introduce all our children to as wide a variety of sporting activities as possible. This is so each child can learn the many benefits of taking part in sports, including health, fitness, fun and relaxation. We also aim to teach good sportsmanship and a good sense of fair play.

We will use a variety of teaching methods and strategies to deliver the curriculum in as exciting and stimulating ways as possible. Children will be given individual, group and class tasks, dependent on the nature of the particular learning experience. We will use some common schemes and methods throughout the school, to ensure continuity and progression for our children. In others, however, very different approaches will be taken by individual teachers, and this reflects our belief that teaching is still a creative skill.

In all work, the children will be encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. We believe that self-motivation is imperative in a world where the mass of knowledge and information is growing at an enormous rate. Our children will be maturing into a world of work that demands the ability to be able to adapt and change at many stages. Our children must, therefore, be encouraged to develop those strategies that allow them to access information and skills for themselves.

Finally, we will encourage our children to work together with each other in a spirit of co-operation, mutual support and growth. We believe that this spirit of co-operation is a valuable and essential aspect of our school's aims, which will benefit our children as they move into the local and wider community.

We have a behaviour policy in school, which is based upon a set of underlying moral principles that we call our “Golden Rules”. These are as follows: -

• We are kind and helpful.
• We are gentle.
• We listen to people.
• We work hard.
• We look after property.
• We are honest.

We reward good behaviour and hard work as a matter of course, celebrating successes as often as possible. To create a positive ethos, we aim to highlight the positives whilst making as little fuss as possible over poor or inappropriate behaviour.

A key element to this policy in practice is the use of “Golden Time” which is a 25 minute reward available to all our children once a week on a Friday afternoon. Special activities are available to the children at that time for the children to choose from. During the week, if a child misbehaves, he or she may lose part of their golden time (usually in 5 minute blocks). This is always after being given warnings or opportunities to correct their behaviour first. They will always be given chances to win back lost golden time, but if by Friday a child still has lost 5, 10 or more minutes, they have to sit in the class whilst their friends have their choices. We find that for most of our children this reward system for good behaviour and hard work really works. Our children love their “Golden Time” and try hard not to lose it.

We also have merit reward systems for both our younger and older children. Our younger children will gain a “Teddy Certificate” when they have collected 20 teddy awards. Our older children work for merits throughout the year, aiming for Bronze, Silver, Gold and finally a Headteacher’s Award.

If a child does not respond to our normal behaviour strategies it may be that they need a special approach. If a child has a persistent behaviour problem we will work with parents to help the child overcome that difficulty. The child will need a consistent approach by both home and school to have success. Partnership we believe is the key.

Some children may have a significant behavioural difficulty that prevents them from fully accessing the school’s curriculum. In that case this difficulty will be classified as a special need and a specific programme of support drawn up to try and help that child. Again parents must be fully involved. Any child for any reason whose behaviour is such that they are disrupting the learning of others will be removed from class until they are ready to return and to behave in an appropriate manner. In exceptional circumstances should a child’s behaviour mean that he or she either completely fails to respond to the school’s authority or be violent or abusive towards others, it could result in an exclusion from school on either a fixed term or permanent basis.

We are proud of the happy and caring ethos of our school and most of our children for the most part behave beautifully.

There are a number of clubs that children may join. These vary from year to year and term to term, but during the last year or so we have offered these after school clubs for children in classes 3, 4 and 5. Clubs are held on different afternoons from 3.00 to
4.00 pm.

Examples of the clubs offered during the year are: -

Art and Craft
Hockey
Netball
Football
Country Dancing
Computers
Athletics
Drama
We notify parents of available clubs at the beginning of each term. Clubs run for up to
8 weeks each term. Most clubs are free, but some clubs are run by outside coaches at a small weekly cost. We would be delighted if any parent wished to offer to run an after school club. If a child signs up for an after school club, they will be expected to attend every week. We will let you know if a club is cancelled for any reason. If your child cannot attend a club any week for any reason, please let the teacher in charge of that club know that they will not be attending. For security reasons it is essential that we know when children are being collected and by whom, and who is on the school site after
3.00 pm.

Instrumental lessons are available weekly in school. A charge is made for these by the Kent Music School. Currently, guitar, and piano are taught but other instruments are available. If you are interested, please speak to Mr Webber.

We believe that a school uniform is a very positive asset to our school. It helps us to foster a family image both inside and outside of the school. Our children wear our school purple sweatshirt. We expect children to have a PE kit for PE and Games lessons (this should be kept at school every day during the week).

Your full support in the matter of school uniform is much appreciated.

School Colour: - Purple

Girls’ Uniform Boys’ Uniform

School purple sweatshirt School purple sweatshirt

Grey skirt/tunic or Grey trousers
Grey trousers

Shirt – white or grey Shirt - white or grey
(Polo or ordinary) (Polo or ordinary)

Summer dresses
(mauve and white check) Short grey trousers are acceptable

Sensible low-heeled, black shoes, Sensible black shoes or black trainers
or black trainers.
No jelly shoes, sling backs or crocs. No jelly shoes or crocs
Plimsolls or plain slippers for indoors Plimsolls or plain slippers for indoors
Optional school fleece Optional school fleece

PE Kit PE Kit

PE bag to hold kit PE bag to hold kit
White shorts White shorts
White T-shirt or polo shirt White T-shirt or polo shirt
Plimsolls - black slip on Plimsolls - black slip on
or white laced or white laced
School provides a slipper/shoe bag School provides a slipper/shoe bag

Trainers are suitable for outdoor Games/PE activities.

School sweatshirts and T-shirts are acceptable as either uniform or for PE kit.
A tracksuit or similar may be worn in colder weather.

Please see Mrs Rowe, our School Secretary, for details of the uniform items available for order through the school's own supplier at very reasonable prices. We also operate a "pass it on" service where school clothes that are outgrown, but in good condition are passed on to other parents. These items are all priced at £1.50. The money goes to school funds.

Names on Clothes

Please will you ensure that you put your child's name on every item of clothing. It saves us time when clothes are found and your money when clothes are lost.