Best Primary In Accrington
 

Hi. First post on here. Do any other parents have any opinions about which is the best primary school in Accrington. My kids are currently at Peel Park but I am seriously thinking of trying to get them into another school. Can anyone give opinions of other schools in the area, such as St Johns etc. Badically, I want to know which school will provide them with the best quality of education possible. Many thanks.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

Don`t know about Accy - though All saints is really good in Clayton.
though you could try this link
http://www.accringtonobserver.co.uk/...ancashire.html
for an idea of performance, but of course performance results don`t always reflect other important aspects of a school, such as discipline, opportunities etc..

Good luck though :D

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

Its a difficult question to answer unless you have had kids in multiple primary schools.. Mine all went to Mary Mags and i would ahve nothing but praise for the school.. But how can I compare it having never sent them anywhere else?

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

We are hoping to get Siobhan into St Johns, Baxenden. In order to do this there is a great emphasis put on church attendance such that we sign a 'register' everytime we take her to church. This is made available to the school governers when they are deciding on who gets entry. I do know of one family who have lived in bash all their lives who did not go to the church and ended up not getting in. Whether this is a fair or right way of deciding entry is a controversial matter that I don't want to discuss here.

I don't think its that easy to just decide you would like to go to XYZ

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

Hi,

Mine go to St. Johns, they've been there a year after I had no faith in the primary school that they attended before. It's only my opinion but it's a great school, very friendly. Also very well run and lots of male staff, which was my main gripe with the the school they attended previous, it was all female staff. Education wise, mine have come on brilliantly since going to St. Johns, hope this helps. :)

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

Thanks for those replies. Until a year and a half I didnt have a problem with the school, but now there seems to be far to many non-teachers covering lessons and there seems to have been a high turn-over in staff over the last 2 years. From talking to other parents it seems to be the general opinion that standards have dropped, especially in discipline and rumours are rife that staff morale is very low. I do not want the education of my children being affected by this which is why I was looking for opinions on other schools (as mine have only ever been to peel park).
Just out of interest, do other schools have lessons regularly covered by non-teaching staff? I don't think this should be the case except in emergencies.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

I can only speak for my son`s school, but he has his regular class teacher and a class room assistant that is there to assist the teacher, but not do the lessons themselves. The only teachers that actually do the teaching are the teachers. Although once when he was in year 1 the teaching was done by a trainee teacher on her placement, but that was with the guidance of the main teacher.
By non-teaching staff do you mean class room assistants?

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

Yes. It does seem to be worse in certain classes. At first I didnt think anything of it as my child just said they had been taught by a certain person that afternoon who I assumed was a teacher. This happened regularly (2-3 afternoons a week in some cases) but then I found out this person was a member of staff who was employed to work with a particular child. So if they are employed to work with one child (who I am presuming has some form of special needs), it seems wrong that they then take control of the whole class on a regular basis in the absence of the teacher who should be teaching in that class. I can understand this happening in an emergency, but when I see the teacher who was supposed to be teaching my child talking in the playrground while I am collecting my child, I cant see why they couldnt teach the class that afternoon. I did try to talk to the head about it but when I went, it turned out that both the head and deputy had gone with the older children to london! Thats another issue, but i thought one should remain in school!

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

I would have thought that too, re: the head and deputy, as deputy obviously in charge in absence of head!

It seems odd the special needs assistant person teaching the class,fair enough supply teachers etc..

There should be someone you can talk to during the hols, Local Education Authority? You deserve some answers as you are more than entitled to know that your Child is being well cared for and taught whilst in the care of the school

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

My daughter will be in her final year at Peel Park this Sept and the school have been fantastic with her.I would suggest that you make an appointment to discuss your concerns with the Head,Mrs Williams;she is a very reasonable and capable Head who will deal with your concerns straight away. As for the year 5 London trip;it's an annual thing and the deputy head,Mr Henderson has run it for years,I believe the Head went along on this occasion as it was her first year at the school and wanted to see how it was run.
I cannot reiterate how helpful the school have been during this last year especially;my daughter had both legs in plaster for 6 weeks and the school made sure she had access to all her lessons,help when needed and she wasn't excluded from any aspect of her education.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

I can only irriterate exactly what Lindsay has said here, yes i worked at Peel park last year on placement, which is reason for a lot of turn over of Teaching Assistants & to referring to Teaching Assistant taking over well only the very best & experienced was good that she was trusted to take over in extreme cases of staffing emergencies ie staff sickness & on proffessional level can say competant enough. I can say as a former pupil back in the day Peel Park has improved somewhat & are very inclusive to all pupils & knocked a few old ghosts to know they are better on the whole than when i was there despite most of the old staff still being there.


Suppose you know your own child[ren] & are better informed to judge whats best for them as far as you want in a school & education....each to us own.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

saint marys in oswaldtwistle has a high reputation and is very good my friends sister goes there and they are very strict with education as i had to go to that school for a week for my health and social care course at mountcarmel

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

St Nicholas in Accy. Headteacher Nick Walker is a legend!!!!:)

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

im suprised none of you have mentioned my old primary benjamin hargreaves i am in my final year at high school and the primary did wonders for me. it has excellent grades in SATS in science,maths and english and has a cristian link with st.pauls across the road on plantation street.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

Thanks to everyone for the answers. I guess you have all seen the primary league tables: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...l/888_2099.stm
The overview is that over the past few years, Peel Park scored:
234 (2003)
254 (2004)
252 (2005)
217 (2006)
This drop bucks the Local authority and national average trend which have been going up. So standards were steadily going up under Mr Burkinshaw but then start to drop and then drop alarmingly after she took over. What an alarming drop in standards! Also, can anyone confirm if staff who are absent are suffering from stress? There seem to be some long term absentees and the rumour is it is due to stress. I think there are 3 off at the moment which is far too many.
Im going to be using these league tables to indicate where I should send my children as this confirms concerns I had over the way the school is going.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

The parents of children at Peel Park were issued a letter last week which went into detail of which teachers were ill;there are some "serious" illnesses amongst the staff and the school appear;in my view;to be doing their best to maintain consistency for the children as best they can. Teachers,like the rest of us sadly aren't immune from cancer and other serious illness. I can only reiterate our experiences and so far they have all been good. I wouldn't hesitate to send any offspring to Peel Park;-my daughter has just sat her entrance exam for grammar school on the recommendation of one of Peel Park teachers.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

I have worked at St Johns with St Augustines,Mary Mags, Peel Park and Heathland. My children have attended St Johns, Woodnook, Mary mags and peel park !! Phew!

Schools are suited to different types of people. Mary mags is a fantastic place but not suited to all.
I had serious problems with St Johns, bullying is not taken seriously, favouritism is given to parents who are involved with the church (awards are given to their children every year!) and only the highest acheivers succeed. This said, there are some recent additions to the staff, who are great! (The men)
Teaching assistants do teach classes on occasion but there are grades of TA's, Level 1,Level 2, Level 3 and HTA's. Only the most competent teach. And in my experience, the TA's are very much unappreciated. They know the children often better than the teacher, and they know the curriculum just as well too.
Im not into slagging off schools/staff so i dont want my words to be taken the wrong way.

Re: Best Primary In Accrington
 

just in accrington or will ossy do too?