School Focus: New Hinksey, village primary in the city

The smallest primary school in the city, even Ofsted has described it as “like a village school” with “a close-knit family atmosphere”.

Results and standards have improved continuously during the seven years which headteacher Charlotte Haynes has led the school.

She said: “We like to keep small classes and a high ratio of adults to children to give as individualised an education as possible.

“Our classes have between 22 and 29 pupils and, as a result, the children’s rate of progress is much quicker.

“With teaching assistants as well, the work can really be targeted to the individual needs of children.”

Unlike Oxfordshire’s other small schools, which tend to be in rural areas, the make-up of pupils is incredibly diverse.

Pupils from each of the world’s major religions and from a wide range of backgrounds attend the Church of England school, with a fifth of pupils speaking English as a second language.

But with a good 2009 Ofsted report attracting parents to the school and a city-wide boom in pupil numbers, the school faces real difficulty in expanding.

The tightly contained site is already full, and there are no viable alternatives for relocation.

Mrs Haynes said: “We are okay up to one class per year group, but cannot get any bigger than that on this site.

“The main limitation is the outside playground, which we cannot expand on any more.

“Our ideal option would be to relocate to a new site for a bigger school within New Hinksey, but realistically there is nowhere suitable.

“We need to be a school located in the local community.”

The school’s location does provide some bonuses.

Children use Hinksey Park for sports in the summer, and regularly go on trips into Oxford city centre for a range of educational programmes, including museum visits and projects with the University of Oxford.

The school has already expanded over the past few years, and improvements have also been made to the classrooms, which date back to 1894.

From September, changes have also been introduced into the school’s curriculum.

Each term, the whole school studies the same broad topic, but at different levels.

Mrs Haynes said: “At the moment, everyone from the foundation class to Year Six is studying ‘heroes and villains’.

“The youngest children are learning traditional fairy tales with goodies and baddies, the middle of the school are finding out about historic heroes and villains, and the oldest children are working on Macbeth.”

From Greek, to gardening and Morris dancing, Loraine Christensen brings some added extras to school life.

Running a range of after-school clubs throughout the year, the Years Three and Four teacher gives her free time to share her passions with her pupils.

This term, she is teaching modern Greek to the pupils; in spring she will be doing gardening with them; and in the summer she will run Morris dancing sessions with musicians from local side Armaleggan Border Morris.

She has also run both a board games and eco club.

She said: “After-school clubs are good because the children get to do things that they cannot do in the curriculum.

“It gives them a chance to do something else completely different.

“It is a different atmosphere from the classroom so you see them in a different light.”

Ms Christensen has taught at the school for six years. She added: “It is a lovely school to work in.

“There is a real social mix of children and the staff are really friendly.

“Because it is a small school, it has a small village atmosphere. All of us know each other really well, and each day starts with a good feeling. It is a very happy school.”