ABOUT THE SCHOOL

Woodside Primary School opened in 1972 and is a one form entry Junior Mixed and Infants School with a Nursery class, catering for boys and girls aged 3 to 11. It has a standard admission number of 30 with two early years classes (Nursery and Reception), two infant classes (Key Stage 1) and four junior classes (Key Stage 2).

The number on roll in September 1997 is 222 and this will rise to 245 by April 1998. Woodside School is maintained by Hertfordshire County Council.

The school has a large assembly hall and a dining hall. The school grounds include 2 hard surface playing areas, a large playing field, a wildlife area and two adventure playgrounds.

The school is divided into a number of teaching areas to give flexibility in the way that children are grouped and taught as appropriate to each activity and to each child - whole class teaching, small group work and individual teaching. The curriculum caters for children of all abilities through the differentiation of the curriculum in each classroom.

The Nursery class is situated in a separate building, with its own fenced play areas. The infant area (Reception, Years 1 and 2) has a large shared teaching space for two classes, a classroom for one class and 3 homebase areas (one for each class).

The junior area (Years 3-6) is separated into 4 classrooms.

Classes in 1997/8 (as at 2/9/97)

6TF, Mrs Facer, (Year 6) 36 children

5/6ZB, Mrs Berndes (Years 5 and 6) 35 children

4AB, Mrs Barnard, (Year 4) 25 children

3JC, Mrs Crispin, (Year 3) 32 children

2SC, Mrs Chandler, (Year 2) 31 children

1RM, Mrs Millward, (Year 1) 30 children

RCW, Miss Walker, (Reception) 10 children

NJM, Mrs Mencarini, (Nursery) 30 children

There will be 20 reception children entering the school during the spring and summer terms, bringing the number of reception children to 30 by April 1998. It is the policy of the governing body that classes should not exceed 30 where possible. However this number has been exceeded where parents have appealed to the County Council’s Arbitration and Conciliation Service for a place at Woodside School.

Four-year-old children enter the reception class at Woodside School in three groups in September, January and April (see the admissions policy in this prospectus). They then progress through the school in classes that are divided chronologically into year groups wherever possible. Transfer to secondary school is at 11+.

OUR PLANS FOR WOODSIDE SCHOOL

 In our School Development Plan we have considered our short, medium and long term plans for the school.

Our immediate plans include developing communication technology as one of only eight schools in the CableTel Schools Initiative. This will give the opportunity to explore the use of the Internet for electronic communications such as e-mail and video conferencing. We will also develop a Woodside School Intranet and look at the way the local community can interact with the school on the Internet. We are also reviewing our Whole School Curriculum Plan and completing Schemes of Work for all areas of the National Curriculum.

Our medium term plans include further improvements to the school grounds , reorganisation of the Key Stage 1 areas and developing the role of subject co-ordinators through the provision of non-contact time.

In the long term we wish to extend the school buildings to provide a permanent nursery classroom structure, enlarged Key Stage 1 classrooms, a library and an area for instrumental music teaching.