Headteacher’s welcome message

As Headteacher of Riverside Primary Academy, I would like to warmly welcome you to our school website. I hope you can find all of the information you require about our school here, but if you have any further questions, please ring us and ask.

The Governing Body, the Leadership Team and I have a very clear vision of what we want and how to get the best deal for our children and the community we serve. For this reason, we made the decision in 2012 to become an academy. This means we have been given the freedom to make choices for our school which bring the most benefits to our children and our families. We are no longer a Local Authority school and therefore, there are some differences in the way we do things at our school to the way they are done in others.

Visitors to our school tell us that the school is well organised, very safe and calm. From a professional viewpoint, we provide our community with a school where all of our pupils thrive and reach or exceed their potential for learning and for emotional development. Teachers and support staff work hard to make learning fun by visiting a wide range of places and having visitors to come into school to inspire the children to want to learn more. We are often on school visits to places such as Washington Old Hall to learn about the Tudor period in history, the synagogue or mosque to learn about a range of religions first hand or Robinwood in Alston; a residential weekend for the older children in the school, where they take part in a wide range of exciting new physical and mental challenges. We are very proud of our school and our children. We always strive to have high standards of attainment, exceptional manners and a very positive attitude towards learning and social times.

You will notice that at our school, we have very high expectations. We expect that all children attend school as much as they possibly can so that they can maximise their learning potential and that they will be on time and be ready to start their school day. Holidays during term time are not allowed and children’s attendance is monitored closely and followed up with parents and carers where necessary because we can not teach your child if they are not actually in school. Children are expected to behave themselves in school, and as parents and carers, we expect that you will reinforce this requirement at home.

When we were last inspected by Ofsted, we were praised very highly in all areas of the school. We were judged to be ‘good’ overall with the behaviour of our children being judged as ‘outstanding’. Our motto is ‘Riverside Primary Academy…raising pupil aspirations’. We work hard to ensure that every child in our school is well nurtured, well-educated and develop an understanding that they can all, in time, go on to a university of their choice.

We welcome your thoughts about our school and ask that you come and see us for a visit while our children are present; when you can see us as we really are. That way, you will feel for yourself, the sense of fun and happiness in our school and know why our children love being here.

Julie Goodfellow

Headteacher