Houndsfield Primary School

Houndsfield Primary School is a primary school located in Edmonton. The school was founded in 1903.

History

Houndsfield Primary School was built in 1903 by Edmonton School Board as an elementary school. Later on a new wing for juniors was added in 1935. After the 1944 Act the senior departments became a mixed secondary modern.

Houndsfield Road board school opened in 1903 with departments for boys, girls, and mixed juniors on different floors in one building and for infants in a second building. It was reorganized for boys, girls, and infants in 1926 and became a junior mixed and infants' school in 1931. A new wing was added to the juniors' building in 1935. The schools were attended by a total of 1,003 children in 1906 and 1,084 in 1919. There were 311 children on the roll at the junior school in 1973 and 305 infants, including 60 in the nursery class.^[1]

Location

The main building is located between Ripon Road and Doncaster Road. The nursery and a reception is located between Houndsfield Road and Doncaster Road. However the school is considered to lie on Ripon Road. ^[2] The school's field backs onto Jubilee park. This meant that pupils were able to climb over the fence into the park. However the school now has put up another, higher fence as a safety precaution, in front of the old fence to prevent this from happening.

Clubs

Daily an after school club takes place in the main hall of the school. The after school club takes place from 3:00pm – 5:45pm.^[3] It provides care for children after school finishes, and has various activities including arts and crafts and football. They have the best clubs

Performance

Pupils at Houndsfield regularly achieve lower results in their KS2 tests then the National average - in 2006 the school achieved lower than local schools and also pupils achieve lower than the national average in all three core subjects.

School Cups

Every few weeks at the school assembly, a pupil is nominated by the form tutor to be awarded the school cup and certificate. The school cup is giving to the pupils for a period of one week, before they have to return the cup, so it can be re-awarded.

Cup names

The following are names giving to the school cups;

• Leyla Halil Cup
• David Osbourne Cup

Events

Swimming

Each year the students in year 5 go to the local swimming pool and are taught to swim, for free. This takes place once a week for a term.

Awards

The pupils can gain several awards, whilst they attend the swimming lessons.

• Yellow - 1st awarded certificate
• Green - 2nd awarded certificate
• Red - 3rd awarded certificate
• Blue - 4th awarded certificate

• White - The White certificate is awarded if the pupil was unable to earn the yellow certificate.

Multi-cultural evening

Once a year pupils take part in a multi-cultural evening, where pupils perform songs and dances from different cultures. The event takes place in the field adjacent 'Jubilee park'. Parents and teachers prepare food and also an ice-cream van is allowed onto the field.

African drumming

The pupils take part in a musical program in which they learn how to play the 'African drums'. A professional drummer is brought into the school to teach the pupils how to drum and perform native dances. After they have learned how to perform basic dances and songs, they perform to the rest of the school and the parents and carers.

Enfield Sings Project

Each year the school participates in the 'Enfield Sings Project', where local schools performed a concert together. The schools, individually prepare for the performance. Also a vocal coach comes in the school and helps the pupils prepare for the performance, for two months in advance. The schools then collectively perform the concert at the 'Lee Valley Hall' to the parents and members of public.

Kingswood

Each year students in Year 6 are given the opportunity to take a trip to 'Kingswood' for a week, an Educational Activity Centres for students. Whilst the majority of schools in Edmonton and Enfield go to the centre located in the Isle of Wight, the school visits the centre in West Runton, Norfolk.

Incidents

In 2003 a classroom was destroyed by a fire on the top floor of the school. The fire was purposely started by a pupil at the school, who was later expelled. The pupil had attempted to start a fire in a small office, earlier in the day, however the fire was controlled by a member of staff.Later in 2009 another fire occurred by an unknown person, who wasn't yet to be found. Houndsfield are trying their best to find the person who did it.

References