School Organisation
Holy Family School is a voluntary aided school and serves the Parish of Holy Family. The school, built in 1974, extended in 1976 and again in 1993, is very pleasantly situated.
The school is arranged into four classes as follows:
Class Mercury – Reception and Y1 18 pupils
Classteacher - Mrs Pemberton
Main teaching assitant - Mrs Wiles
Class Venus – Y1 and Y2 28 pupils
Classteachers - Mrs Maloney, Deputy Headteacher (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
and - Mrs Mihell (Thursday and Friday).
Main teaching assistant - Mrs Disley
Class Mars – Y3 and Y4 34 pupils
Classteacher - Miss Power (Mon-Thurs) Mrs Wilkinson (Friday)
Main teaching assistant - Mrs Spence
Class Saturn – Y5 and Y6 33 pupils
Classteachers - Miss Barnes
Main teaching assistant - Mrs Garlick
Mrs Holt is our school SENDCO (Mon-Wed) and works with pupils who have specific learning needs.
Mrs Boughey and Mrs Hayes work in a variety of classes to give support to children individually or in small groups wherever the need is required.
As you can see all our classes are mixed-age classes. This is because our school is smaller than the 'average' size school so funding does not allow us to have one teacher for every year group.
Every year we also do our utmost to ensure that Mercury Class has the fewest pupils so that the new Reception aged pupils will be able to settle in to school quickly and to provide them, and their Y1 class-mates, with greater, more individual support.
Each year we also split our Y1 group. Some children remain in Mercury Class and some have to cope with a move in to Venus Class. We do this because government regulations state that we cannot have more than 30 pupils in classes for Reception, Y1 and Y2 pupils. To help us to decide which children would benefit most from each class we consider the development of each child individually and look at their social skills and development, their mathematical skills and development, their English skills and development, their ages, their friendship groups and their general characters.
It should not be considered that to have been allocated to one class or another is an advantage or a disadvantage. It should also not be considered that to have been allocated to one class or another means that some children are more intelligent than others. Children make progress at different rates at different times throughout their education and we believe that we help them to make the best possible progress which they are capable of. This is our main consideration when making any decisions about any child - how can we help them to make the best possible progress?
