Springmead Primary School

Springmead Primary School is situated in the Panshanger area of Welwyn Garden City.  Joining the Spiral Partnership Trust in April 2018 has led to continuously raised standards in all areas of teaching and learning by working with our outstanding Trust schools.  Our values of care, respect and self-control are central to our everyday lives and are relevant to pupils and staff in all that we do.  Our vision through our learning values of independence, teamwork, creativity, reflection, problem-solving and risk-taking is to support and develop our children into becoming fully rounded confident members of society who, when they leave us, have the skills and knowledge to take advantage of every opportunity that they are presented with.

We are part of Spiral Partnership Trust, a community of primary schools working together to make a positive difference to children's lives. The partnership of schools work in collaboration to provide exceptional quality of education to children.

What is special about Spiral?

We believe that our staff are our greatest asset. We want to employ staff who share our high standards and expectations and then to look after and invest in them to ensure they reach their own potential.

We aim:

• To recruit and retain the best staff
• To ensure the principles of fairness and balance across different groups of staff
• To embed a flexible professional approach to deliver excellent teaching and learning

To achieve these aims we offer:

• Enhanced salaries for teaching and support staff
• A move towards a more flexible way of working
• An innovative way of working, aiming at reducing workload and freeing up time for the fun stuff!
• The option of 3 days "personal time" leave during term time
• More generous sick pay arrangements than most other schools
• A comprehensive employee assistance programme from the first day of employment; this gives access to private GP support and physiotherapy appointments

We believe that we can offer to all our stakeholders something distinctive. Key features of our Trust include:

• Creativity and innovation: thinking beyond "the box"
• Experienced and nationally recognised staff, especially at the senior level
• Celebrating and maintaining individual school identities
• Providing excellent support when, where and how it is needed
• A disciplined focus on performance and achievement
• Building varied Learning Communities (everywhere, not just in the classroom)
• Minimising paperwork that adds little value provided it is is not needed for compliance purposes
• Partnerships, networking and benchmarking
• Mature and multiskilled Board expertise

The CEO works closely with the Headteachers of our schools to share the Trust values across the learning community and the Trust supports and develops outstanding teachers and leaders as they take on the challenge of headship.