Part of Victoria Academies Trust

Welcome to the Devonshire Infant Academy website.

My name is Mrs Gibson and I am lucky enough to be the Head Teacher of this wonderful school. I would like to introduce you to our school and tell you a little about our vision, values and the curriculum that we follow to ensure that our children learn all that they need to know to be ready for the next steps in their learning journey.

All of our colleagues who support the work that we do here share a vision to make our school and the people in it ‘The Best We Can Be’, which is also our Trust vision. We are very proud of our children for the way that they respect one another and happily try their best when they are learning. They know that they are valued and cared for in school and that we will always try our best to understand their needs and make their learning just right for them so that they can grow in knowledge and understanding, gaining important life skills and learning attitudes as they progress through the school. You can find out more about our FIDES values on our website.

Our curriculum is Rich, Immersive and Purposeful (our RIP curriculum) which really engages the children in their learning and has many wonderful opportunities for reading and writing across all of the National Curriculum subjects. Our central focus is for the children to learn to read and to develop a love for books so that a new book becomes a joy. We hope that this will stay with them for life and that the stories that they learn, or books they discover here will inspire them to become avid readers in the future. We want every child to leave each class with a bank of new stories in their head, with all of those exciting new words ready to spill out into their own stories. In Nursery we invite our parents along to join in with story time with their child and, if coming in to school is not possible, we have recordings of our staff reading their favourite stories on our website that you can listen to at home.

Phonics is our children’s first and most important key to reading success so we teach a systematic synthetic phonics programme to ensure that all children learn the knowledge and skills they need at the right time, and in the best order, to give them success. Our Phonic scheme is called ‘Little Wandle’ and it has been validated by the government so we know it is effective. All of our teachers and support staff have excellent phonic knowledge and know how to help children to learn and practise the sounds, or phonemes, they learn so that they can keep up and learn really quickly. We ask parents to partner with us in helping the children to learn to read as we know this makes a huge difference to their success. You can find out more about phonics by clicking this link.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/learn-to-read-phonics/

Finally, we are always happy to speak to parents and involve you in your child’s learning or help you to overcome any difficulties. We have a very experienced Pastoral team and our Family support worker, Mrs Nagra, is available every morning in the playground to chat to if you need some help. Mrs Williams, our Deputy Head, and I will also be outside on most mornings if you want to talk to us or you are welcome to arrange for a phone call or an appointment. Our lovely ladies, Mrs Elliot and Mrs Phipps, from the office are also available to help you with anything admin related.

I hope you enjoy looking at our website and find all the information that you need. If you have any questions please contact us and we will do our best to help.

Mrs Gibson