Clifton Primary School

Clifton Primary School is situated in Balsall Heath, just a mile from the city centre, and our school is a calm oasis within the hustle and bustle of the local community. Children are at the heart of all we do. High standards and the Every Child Matters agenda lead our vision and aims.

Clifton Primary School strives to enable all children to achieve their full potential in a safe, welcoming and happy learning environment. We aim to create responsible citizens who are independent and confident lifelong learners equipped to meet the challenges of a changing future. Our children are well behaved, imaginative and hard working. We use the “International Primary Curriculum” to inspire children to want to learn. Alongside this we have a strong, whole school approach towards literacy and numeracy teaching and staff plan carefully to ensure their teaching matches the needs of each child.

We were graded ‘Outstanding’ by OFSTED in 2009 and in 2011 achieved our best ever KS2 SATs results. Children make better than expected progress by the time they finish their education in our school.

Clifton Primary works closely with Balsall Heath Children’s Centre. We offer wrap around care by being open from 8 a.m. and signposting parents to “The Nest” for after school care. We also signpost parents to activities that will benefit their children e.g. in summer 2011 a Play and Language course was offered and run by the Children’s Centre to a group of parents whose children would be entering Nursery in September 2011. Staff also work closely with a variety of external agencies to offer a range of activities, e.g. Mums and toddlers fitness sessions, workshops to develop communication and speech and language development.

We have very supportive parents who take an active role in school life: listening to reading; fund raising; improving the Nursery garden etc. In turn we support parents by inviting them to attend family learning sessions throughout the year. These can be morning Inspire workshops for Reading, Writing, Mathematics, learning through play, using the iPads, or longer courses with tutors which take place over several weeks. Parents are also kept up to date through letters, regular coffee mornings, texts, newsletters and the website.

Professionals within Clifton are on a learning journey. Clifton is a National Support School, its Headteacher is a National Leader of Education and the Chair of Governors is a National Leader of Governance. The school has nationally accredited Senior Leaders of Education for Literacy and Assessment. It is also part of the Greet Teaching School Alliance; the only primary school alliance in Birmingham and learning for all is at the heart of its ethos.

Clifton Primary has been accredited with: The Basic Skills Quality Mark, Healthy Schools Award, Active Mark, Artsmark Gold, and International Primary Schools Award. We are very proud of our school and what we achieve. We do hope you will come and visit us.

Clifton School website