Shenstone School: Vision and Values
“Together we engage, thrive and achieve.”
At Shenstone School we are committed in supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of all our pupils, staff and parents/carers.
Our vision is to be amongst the best specialist providers for pupils with Severe and Complex learning needs and to be recognised as a centre for excellence, providing support to other schools that have children with similar special educational needs.
We have high expectations for all our pupils and strive to ensure that their individual needs, interests and abilities are recognised and met. Our Shenstone Values are at the core of all we do.
Our core purpose is to:
- encourage and celebrate achievement for pupils at every opportunity.
- provide a safe and happy learning environment for everyone and to provide opportunities and experiences for the children to build self-esteem and confidence.
- help children to create and maintain positive relationships.
- promote a sense of teamwork across the entire school community.
- work to engage and be a positive influence within the local community.
Headteacher welcome:
“To infinity and beyond,” Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story
This quote best sums up our intentions and aspirations for the pupils at Shenstone School. We strive to do our utmost to put in place support systems and strategies that are differentiated to meet the holistic development and learning needs of our amazing pupils at Shenstone School. Every child is an individual and as such we diligently work as a school team and with wider multi-agency support teams, to ensure that our curriculum delivery recognises their uniqueness and supports them on their life-long learning journeys.
Shenstone School is a special school for children who have severe and or complex learning difficulties within the London Borough of Bexley. All pupils who attend Shenstone School have Education and Health Care Plans. We are one of two special schools within The Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT).
Shenstone School is located on two sites, Sidcup (for younger pupils in nursery to Y2/3) and Crayford (for older pupils from Y2/3 to Y6). For the academic year 2020-2021, Shenstone School also has a satellite class located at Parkway Primary School in Thamesmead, supporting pupils in R/Y1.
Paramount to our ethos is support for all and pupil, family and staff engagement is extremely important to us. We work hard to ensure that Shenstone is a safe, happy, welcoming and truly outstanding place for our pupils to thrive. Our school benefits from impressive facilities across all school sites; enabling us to offer a wide range of opportunity and activity for learning both inside and outside the classroom.
Our pupils are amazing and the progress that they make on a regular basis is inspiring. Regardless of how small or large the successes are, we are very proud of the children and pleased to be able to be there to contribute to and support their achievements. The values and ethos of "together we engage, thrive and achieve" is entwined through all that we do at Shenstone School. As the Executive Head Teacher of Shenstone School, it is truly and honour to work with such fantastic children and to be part of a very committed staff team.
We hope that you enjoy your visit to our website which aims to give you a glimpse into our busy school life, as well as providing regular updated information. Do not hesitate to make contact should you have any questions about our super school.
Why is Shenstone such an amazing place to work?
First and foremost, most staff work at Shenstone in order to enhance the lives of our amazing pupils and to enjoy the job satisfaction that comes with that on a daily basis.
Shenstone School is truly a lovely and rewarding place to work. Our aim is to ensure that staff are able to maintain positive wellbeing and good mental health to secure the best possible outcomes in life, no matter what the circumstances are. We try to go above and beyond to assist staff so that they can achieve a happy and healthy outlook. In July 2019, Shenstone achieved the Wellbeing Award for School and we continue to expand with new ideas and initiatives in order to maintain and improve services for staff. Currently we have Mental Health first aiders on each site who can provide support and sign post members of staff to different services, Senior Leaders facilitate bi-monthly wellbeing meetings, all staff and their immediate families can access our free telephone counselling service, we have specialists at Occupational Health who are able to assist if a need arises and the school organises relevant vaccine programmes for staff e.g. flu and Hep B.
Shenstone School also provides staff with an extensive induction programme and great staff development opportunities. Staff are assigned compulsory online training which includes: Safeguarding, Fire Safety, Food Hygiene, GDPR, Cyber awareness and manual handing. The school also invites facilitators in to provide such training as: Anaphylaxis, Asthma, Epilepsy, Medicine Management, Enteral feeding (if necessary), first aid, resus training etc. All staff are regularly Team Teach trained by our own certified trainers and manual handling is provided to those who require this. Annual updates are also provided in important areas such as Keeping Children Safe in Education.
CPD (for example NVQ Level 2 and Level 3 Teaching Assistant course) is provided from time-to-time, in order to develop staff. Many staff have used opportunities that have occurred at Shenstone School to progress themselves and have successful applied when other positions have become available within the School. A shout out now goes to one of our amazing Teachers, who herself started off as one of our Midday Supervisors and progressed through various job roles within the school, qualified as a Teacher and remains as part of our dedicated team. You don’t have to look far to find similar staff stories where people have progressed in their careers at Shenstone. The Senior Leaders are all very approachable with an open door policy and individual CPD will be encouraged and supported as much as possible.
Shenstone has a whole host of specialists who work alongside the staff to provide support/services to the pupils. This includes: speech and language, physiotherapist, sports/dance/music clubs and therapists, Vision/Hearing Impairment staff, Education Phycologists, Social Workers, Nurses/Doctors and many more.
So, if you are enthusiastic, passionate, can inspire pupils with special needs, then Shenstone is the School for you. Please complete the necessary documents and follow the application process.
Good luck!
Virtual tour Sidcup site - Please see link below
https://youtu.be/ihEG7A_nwq4
Virtual tour Crayford site - Please see link below
https://youtu.be/xAqVVLfEX_4
