Assistant Headteacher

Mills Hill Primary is a large, growing two form entry school with a 52 place nursery. From September 2014, the decision was taken to gradually expand school into 3 forms of entry and currently school has 3 classes in each of Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 with 2 classes in the remaining year groups. To facilitate this expansion, significant building work was undertaken and there are now sufficient classrooms for when school will be full to capacity with 630 pupils [excluding nursery] in September 2020. The vast majority of year groups are full and there were 183 applications for a Reception place in September 2017.

In 2007, the school was designated a National Support School and in 2011 was successful in becoming one of the first National Teaching Schools. National Support School designation criteria were no longer met once the previous headteacher moved on to pastures new but the teaching school eligibility criteria was evaluated by the NCTL in June 2013 and the status was retained with NCTL recognising the “strong track record of effective leadership” of the newly appointed  headteacher. This has been further affirmed in June 2014 with the National College removing the “under review” stipulation. 

School is currently providing support to a number of schools within Blackburn with Darwen, focused on effective self-evaluation. Additionally, school has been in partnership with Edge Hill University and is a lead delivery school for the NPQH, NPQML & NPQSL courses through involvement in the “Alliance of Leading Learning”.   Mills Hill is also the lead school in the “Schools with Schools” ITT partnership previously with Leeds University and currently with Leeds Beckett University and is responsible for the organization of the cluster and for provision for currently 11 trainee teachers, having now trained over 100 trainees in the last few years. 

· Mills Hill School is a community school with part time nursery provision for 52 children. 

· The number on role is currently 595. 

· On entry most children are broadly in line with age related expectations and internal data suggests that an increasing number of children with additional needs are entering school.

· The school currently has 18 classes, excluding the Nursery and children are currently taught in mixed ability single age classes. 

· Roughly 10% of pupils are eligible for free school meals.

· In terms of deprivation, school is placed in the middle quintile.

· 6% of children have special educational needs, 9 pupils with statements of educational need or equivalent.

· Around 67% of our learners are from a white British heritage with the remaining 33% from a variety of heritages. Most of our families speak English in the home environment.

· Broadly 30% of all pupils live in areas classed as the bottom third of the country in terms of deprivation.

Key Features of the School

Our school may best be summed up by “Enquiring Minds & Caring Hearts”. Our curriculum is organised around this statement and most of our school work can be referenced to enquiring minds and caring hearts [EMCH]. Consequently, we assess our children against agreed criteria for EMCH and report this to parents as we feel it is of equal importance to performance in the formal curriculum. 

We are very proud of our children and their achievements. A significant focus over recent years has been the development of collaborative approaches and, by the time they leave, our children are highly skilled in working as a team. This is a significant strength of the school.

All our teaching staff are trained in the use of Kagan Co-operative learning and this has had a considerable impact on both the quality of teaching and on the quality of learning across school. This leads to increased engagement with their learning from pupils and ensures that children are active participants in their learning.

Our pupils are a delight. They approach school life and everyday challenges with confidence and are keen to do their best in all they do. They have a highly developed sense of community and work hard for the benefit of all. A number of key pupil representative committees exist and the children are very keen to have their voice heard.