31 Mar 2025

School Council - Developing democracy

Springmead School's School Council has always been a platform for pupil voice, but, we plan to develop further our commitment to ethical symmetry - a desire to maintain respect for all positions to show that different perspectives are equally valid.

Our aim is to deepen the Council's impact towards genuine participatory democracy to further develop our pupils, so that they are informed and engaged in all aspects of school life.

We are very aware of the profound effect adult views have on childhood agency, and therefore plan to create more opportunity for our pupils to feel empowered to express opinions without undue influence. This change aligns with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Article 12, which guarantees children the right to express their views freely on matters affecting them.

Professor Laura Lundy's model is central to this development. By ensuring safe spaces, facilitated voices, a listening audience, and, critically, influence, Springmead aims to operationalise children's rights through the School. We are aware that power relations often skew towards adults and we plan to take steps to rebalance this by actively seeking and acting upon pupil feedback.

Our aim is to move beyond simply considering pupils' views to ensuring those views genuinely shape school policy and practice.

We are aware that we may need some training as a School to listen effectively and to understand the importance of respecting children's perspectives. By embedding these principles, we are building a school community where ethical symmetry prevails, and our children are active participants in their own education.

I hope you all agree that these are crucially important points and that you will join me in feeling excited about these changes and what they mean to our whole community.

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24 Mar 2025

Scholarship Season

We are delighted to announce that our children have once again been awarded a strong show of scholarships from independent Secondary Schools.

Sally Cox, Headteacher says, "It has been great to work personally with secondary school Headteachers to secure the best possible outcomes for our talented Year 6 class. Springmead School is the only truly independent school in our local area, which means that our children have the opportunity to apply to the next school that is 'right for them' rather than an onward journey on an established pathway from prep to senior school. This means they can apply for a full range of scholarships and bursaries available at a host of different schools as they are external, much-sought-after, candidates. Senior independent schools very much court our children. Warminster Senior School Head, Matt Williams, commented during his visit here, on the well-rounded, academic, confident nature of our graduates. We support children through senior schools' rigorous admissions processes, starting in Year 5 with a presentation for parents on expectations and guidance navigating the scholarship and bursary application process."

Children have been awarded Scholarships at the following senior schools:

Royal High School - Full Academic Scholarship

King Edwards School, Bath - Art Award and Headmaster's Scholarship

Bryanstan Prep - Performing Arts Scholarship

Warminster School - two Headmaster's Scholarships

Beechen Cliff - Sports aptitude place (Scholarship)

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13 Mar 2025

Robotics in Years 5 and 6

Forfar Education, which owns and manages several exceptional independent schools across the UK, including Springmead School and Little Crickets Nursery in Beckington, as part of its STEAM project across all its Schools, conducted a Robotics Challenge, named 'Build, Code, Compete!'

Springmead School’s Year 5 and 6 club took the competition very seriously. The team, through their own creativity and working together, rose to the challenge, to build and code a Lego robot from scratch, that would pick up an object and drop it off at a designated location.

Science lead, Stacey Watson says, “The children worked independently, they took the brief and ran with it. From designing and building the robot, to coding it for the task, their robot, 'Jeremy', is testament to their hard work and innovation.”

A STEAM club member in Year 6 said, “It was great, we made the robot together and had to listen to each other’s ideas and check that it worked as we made it.”

Sally Cox, Headteacher says, “It was great for the children to be competing against other Schools. We are eagerly waiting the results, but this project has sparked huge interest in robotics, coding and programming and we will be building on the learning that took place.”

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