Ofsted Outstanding School Ofsted Report 2007The Hills Lower School is outstanding in all aspects of its work. It fully realises its aims of enabling every child to make excellent progress; of developing lively enquiring minds; and of teaching children to think creatively within a rich, stimulating and enjoyable learning environment. Standards are high because of excellent teaching. Parents are delighted and almost all agree strongly that this is an excellent school. They comment: 'A fabulous school, supporting academic and social progress...our children are getting an all-round education, even the boys love coming to school!' Exceptional leadership and management have brought about further improvements in the effectiveness of the school, which was judged as excellent in the last report. The school's analysis of its own performance is outstanding and has led to well planned changes in provision to bring about further improvements. Ofsted report 2001The good teaching ensures that pupils achieve well, and standards at the age of seven are high in reading and writing and very high in mathematics when compared to those attained by pupils in similar schools. Pupils in Years 3 and 4 continue to achieve well in English, mathematics and science, and in all foundation subjects.Through highly effective leadership and an outstanding systematic approach to all the school’s procedures, the headteacher successfully promotes the aims of the school, which focus on high standards, rapid levels of progress, and good levels of achievement. Ofsted Report 1997The Hills Lower School is a good school with many very good features.The provision is outstanding for equal opportunity, extra-curricular activities, and the links with parents. A very strong feature is the support given to the school by parents. The head and staff are very committed to high levels of pupil achievement and very good systems are in place to monitor the curriculum and its development. The governing body has effective systems for fulfilling its responsibilities and demonstrates much interest in the school’s affairs National Leaders in EducationNational Support Schools National Leaders of Education are serving headteachers who have achieved excellent results in their schools, both in Inspections and in national tests and examinations.  They are outstanding school leaders and together with the staff in their schools, are identified as National Support Schools. They use their knowledge and experience of teaching and learning, and their comprehensive understanding of schools as organisations, to provide additional leadership capacity to schools in challenging circumstances, including those in Ofsted categories. The approach harnesses the best heads to provide support to struggling schools, building leadership capacity at all levels of the supported school. Close to a quarter of a million of children in schools facing the most challenging circumstances have benefited from the expertise of National Leaders of Education and their National Support School staff. Increasingly, NLE/NSS will be expected to be willing and able to take on the leadership of more than one institution.  They will also provide expert advice to Ministers and advise the National College for School Leadership. School Achievement AwardThis scheme was in operation for three years from 1999 until 2002.The school achievement award was originally developed to celebrate the achievements of schools that had made significant improvement or were high performing in the national tests. In each year of the scheme The Hills achieved results that were higher than schools in similar circumstances and received the award.  The Hills has continued to maintain results that are higher than schools in similar circumstances in every year since then. Full International School Award In September 2009, The Hills Lower School was awarded the Full International School Award celebrating the school’s commitment to learning about other countries through the school curriculum and special theme weeks. Annually the school celebrates International Week where each class chooses a country to learn about and children participate in activities including art, drama and food tasting. Bedford Race Equality Council award During October 2009, Bedford Race Equality Council awarded The Hills Lower School with a Special Recognition Award for curriculum enrichment opportunities during Black History Month. Artsmark Gold In June 2008 we were awarded the Arts Council’s highest  level of Artsmark Award: the Artsmark Gold - for our outstanding work in the creative arts. The Artsmark award recognises schools that have made a strong commitment to the arts and that have developed a nationally recognised range of arts provision for their pupils. The aim of Artsmark is to encourage schools to increase arts provision to pupils and to raise the profile of arts education across the country’ The Hills Lower School also received a plaque for our ‘Three Times Gold Artsmark Achievement’ which can be viewed in the school’s reception area. Investors in people Investors in People recognises organisations that manage and develop its members successfully, leading to more effective practices and better public services.  The Hills Lower School has been recognised by Investors in People since 2003, and successfully renewed this status in 2009. Among the many positive attributes that were mentioned within the assessors reports were:- “The way learning and development activities are planned to help achieve the School’s aims and objectives.” Observations that “Staff worked hard and could see the difference that this made through clear routed to learning.” The way the school manages to “enable children to feel valued from nursery through to equipping them for the next move into middle school.” The quality of the “Manager’s effectiveness in supporting the development of people.” “The effectiveness of learning and development.  Learning is targeted and the school can see the difference that learning makes.” The way the school is “Making continual improvements in the organisation’s approach to developing people.” “The way the school recognises and values people’s contributions” ICT Mark The Hills Lower School has reached the ICT Mark standard in all aspects of the framework and you have achieved a standard of e-maturity that is worth celebrating!We went through a rigorous assessment by an independent external assessor on our whole school approach to ICT.Gaining the ICT Mark has helped us to: Improve and enhance the overall reputation of The Hills Inspires confidence from staff, parents, governors and learners in The Hills Celebrates our achievements Provides us with opportunities to share our expertise with other schools Inspires continual commitment and development across The Hills in the use of emerging technology. Eco-School Green Flag We are proud to have been awarded the Eco Schools’ Green Flag Award. This is an international award programme that guides schools on their sustainable journey, providing a framework to help embed these principles into the heart of school life. The prestigious Green Flag Award symbolises excellence in the field of environmental activity and is externally assessed by Keep Britain Tidy.Our assessor, Nick Read, said the minute he walked onto our site and saw our Foundation Stage children using the compost bins on the playground he knew that the ethos of being a sustainable school was deeply engrained. He was incredibly impressed with the cross key stage buddies system in the Eco Committee, our resident Blue Tits who emerged on cue to prove they live in our nest box, the School Kitchen Manageress, Alicia Hawking, who uses fresh produce from the herb garden built by Vicky Welch and Caroline Starr in the Easter holidays and the children from 4T who were seen litter picking without any prompting. Out of the 15,359 schools registered with the scheme only 1,368  have achieved the award. This is due to the hard work and commitment of Mrs Humphreys our Subject leader for Science and the Environment and Vicky Welch our Environmental Teaching Assistant with responsibility for the outdoor environment. Sport England Gold Activemark Active Mark Gold is a national award that can raise the profile of physical activity in schools and beyond. It confirms that The Hills is committed to involving children in a wide range of sporting activities and recognises our commitment to providing a high quality programme. It rewards schools that have a variety of out of hours provision and a comprehensive PE curriculum. It recognises The Hills Lower school for its commitment to promoting the life-long benefits of physical activity. Healthy Schools Award The National Healthy Schools Programme has four themes. The four core themes relate to both the school curriculum and the emotional and physical learning environment in school. Each theme includes a number of criteria that schools need to fulfil in order to achieve National Healthy School Status. Although each theme covers a different area, they are all delivered using the whole school approach so the basic requirements are the same. Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, including SRE and drugs education Healthy Eating Physical Activity Emotional Health and Well-being, including bullying   Inclusion Quality Mark Report SummaryThe Hills Lower School is a privilege and a pleasure to visit. With a mixed social intake and outstanding academic results, it meets every standard required for the Inclusion Quality Mark, and its high expectations for every pupil regardless of ability are an inspiration.The school is an average-sized Lower School taking pupils from age 4 to age 9. Standards at intake are average, but with the personal care, professional expertise and sheer dedication of staff, combined with very good support from parents, children achieve better than national expectations in Maths and English, but also very well indeed in the whole curriculum range, especially in ICT.The Hills Lower School is very popular with parents and set in an area of pleasant owned homes, but there is no social discrimination, and children from different backgrounds all do well. The Governing Body is knowledgeable and supportive, and the whole team is outstandingly well led by an inspirational Headteacher who maintains the vision of an integrated and totally inclusive community school.I am of the opinion that the school fully meets the standard required by the Inclusion Quality Mark. This school is fully self-evaluative and is constantly measuring itself against the highest standards.I recommend that the school be awarded the Mark and be reassessed in 3 years. Assessor:      Barbara Curry          Date:  Feb 14th 2010 The Basic Skills Quality Mark The Hills Lower School has been awarded the prestigious Basic Skills Quality Mark three times. The award lasts for 3 years so we first achieved the necessary standard for the award in 2002. It is reviewed by an external assessor on a yearly basis. We will have our next major review in September 2011. The Quality Mark is about basic skills. The skills all children need; reading, writing, spelling and numeracy, The Quality Mark says that the school: has a strategy and an action plan to improve children's reading, writing, spelling and numeracy assesses children to find out if they need extra help has a target for improving basic skills in the school makes sure that children have plans to improve their reading, writing spelling and numeracy reviews the progress made by all children provides training for staff so that they can improve and develop their skills in teaching uses different ways of teaching based on what each child needs has interesting  books and other material to help children improve and develop encourages parents to help their children with reading, writing and numeracy monitors whether teachers are becoming better at teaching basic skills. The school achieved the Quality Mark because of the work of the teachers and support team who work in the school and because of the progress and standards achieved by the children in school. FMSIS FMSiS is intended help schools to evaluate the quality of their financial management and helps train staff to become better financial managers. It is intended to cover standards and processes that should already be in place in schools, rather than introduce a new, higher standard. The standard itself is a simple statement of what a school that is managed well financially would look like. It sets out its requirements under the following five sections: Leadership and Governance. People Management. Policy and Strategy. Partnerships and Resources. Processes. The school was awarded the standard in 2010 Cultural Diversity Gold Standard In October 2010, the Cultural Diversity Quality Standard Gold Award was gained celebrating equality and cultural diversity in pupil progress, school ethos, curriculum and relationships with the community. The feedback from our assessment day highlighted the following strengths in our school: The school values the individuality of children and is committed to giving children every opportunity to achieve the highest standards. The school environment is key to celebrating and respecting diversity. The curriculum across all subject areas and in different key stages demonstrates the teaching of cultural diversity and equality within the curriculum. The School annually holds events reflecting their commitment to cultural diversity.   The NACE Challenge Award The NACE Challenge Award Self-Evaluation Framework is a school self evaluation tool which provides a standard by which we can audited, evaluated, and planned for continuous whole-school improvement of provision. The Framework consists of ten Elements, which together describe quality provision. Each Element contains objective criteria and suggested evidence of what constitutes effective practice. Element 1: A whole school strategy, including an action plan, to support Able, Gifted and Talented Pupils Element 2: Identification strategies and criteria Element 3: A target for improvement of the school's provision and the performance of Able, Gifted and Talented pupils Element 4: Range of learning styles, teaching strategies & classroom organisation to meet the needs of Able, Gifted & Talented Pupils Element 5: Regular reviews to identify underachievement and support individual pupils Element 6: A commitment to improve the skills of all staff in the school to meet the needs of A, G&T pupils Element 7: Support of exceptionally A, G&T Pupils (top 2% nationally) Element 8: The school has a range of appropriate resources Element 9: Parental involvement Element 10: An effective procedure for monitoring the action plan an assessing the effectiveness of the school's policy for A, G&T In the autumn 2006 we began to collate and cross reference evidence to prove we met each of the detailed criteria. An action plan was developed and actions taken to update and refine our practice. The next step was a pre assessment meeting with a NACE assessor; documents collated for each element were discussed. The assessor felt we had a strong case for assessment and that we had depth and breadth to our evidence base. The assessment day was rigorous. The day began with parental and governor interviews, pupils, the head teacher, curriculum enrichment coordinator and staff were also interviewed, a range of lessons were observed and finally the Challenge Award portfolio and samples of work from each class were scrutinised.We were successfully awarded The Challenge Award. The Hills Lower School was the first school in Bedfordshire to gain the award. June 2011: The Hills Lower School has successfully been reaccredited by NACE for our provision for able pupils.  212 schools have now achieved the Nace Challenge Award but only 20 schools have been re-accredited. DCSF extended school full core award The Government set out a core offer of services that they want all schools to offer access to (in partnership with local authorities and local providers) by 2010: This involved a multi-agency approach to children's services through closer collaboration between other schools, social services, healthcare professionals and the police. varied menu of activities (including study support, play/recreation, sport, music, arts and crafts and other special interest clubs, volunteering and enterprise activities), in a safe place for primary schools. childcare 8:00am — 5:30pm, during term time and sign posted to other providers during holiday periods parenting support including family learning swift and easy access to targeted and specialist services such as speech and language therapy community access to facilities including adult learning opportunities, ICT and sports facilities. These services are shaped to meet the needs of pupils, parents and the community; this core offer ensures that there is a minimum of services and activities for families. Services will not necessarily be provided on the school site or by teachers.     Primary Science Quality Mark - Silver Level The Primary Science Quality Mark was successful and we are in the first wave of schools ever to receive accreditation at silver level. The Primary Science Quality Mark is an award scheme that helps schools develop and celebrate the quality of their science teaching and learning. It aims to raise the profile of science and recognises schools that demonstrate good practice and an excellent range and quality of teaching and learning in science. It provides a framework for evaluating, planning and developing the quality of science teaching and learning and celebrates a commitment to excellence in science.