Community

Kenley Primary School thrives on being at the heart of the community. We participate in local ventures and are also well supported by members of our local community. Visiting the local area and meeting with members of the community is very important to us as a school and we regularly visit the local area for both environmental studies and local history work.

Supporting our local community

Kenley children have become involved in the support of elderly people in local retirement homes. They have visited three local retirement homes where the children have been entertained with stories about the Second World War and they have participated in some craft activities with the residents. Our choir has sung carols at another home at Christmas and more recently the children made a ‘Welcome to Rokewood Court’ card for new residents of that home; made Christmas cards for the residents and have participated in an Easter competition.

Every year the school hold a Harvest festival collection. All donations are sent to Purley Food Hub to help local people in need.

An annual firework display is held on the school field for members of the local community. This is very well attended and proceeds are used to help support the school.

We support the local secondary school students with their work experience . We usually accept 3 or 4 placements and provide them with a varied timetable of experience. We also support trainee teaching assistants with work placements.

We invite Kenley Kindergarten into Reception class in the summer term in order for them to experience the classroom and outdoor learning environments. They also use our grounds for their annual sports day.

Parents are encouraged to bring their unwanted clothing, books etc to a recycling facility in our school playground. This provides support for the ‘Lord Whiskey Sanctuary’.

Support from the local community

We have received great support from the Downland Trust – a local charity run by volunteers which has made donations towards the funding of a new school pond on our grounds.

The local countryside warden for Whyteleafe and Kenley has also been involved with the pond project and with the maintenance of our forest school. They have supported with the labour, equipment and advice as necessary.

Tescos in Purley has recently donated funds towards the pond and forest school area too.

Kenley Primary School has built up close links with All Saints Church in Kenley. We have two members of the Church community on our Governing board.

At Christmas time, All Saints Church invite the school to participate in their decorated Christmas tree display and also host our whole school carol service. They have arranged the collection of book donations from their visitors and distributed them to each classroom at Kenley Primary School. They also support the forest school with donations of tools, seating pads and weekly help.

Crystal Palace Football Club have supported our school for four years with a variety of projects. They ran a ‘Team Mates’ project to support the wellbeing of a small group of children which included a tour of Selhurst Park; ran a series of ‘Reading Stars’ sessions to encourage reluctant readers and recently donated a number of books prior to ‘World Book Day.’ We were also fortunate to be able to offer one of our children the opportunity to appear at a home match as the referee’s mascot.

A team from the Croydon Citizenship Award programme have presented an annual assembly to the school about what it means to be a good citizen and we have identified pupils worthy of the award. They have attended an awards presentation evening with their parents where the Mayor of Croydon has presented them with their well deserved award.

We maintain close links with our local secondary schools. Groups of children have visited both Riddlesdown Collegiate and Warlingham High School for various special events including a Science Day; an afternoon to design and make an electronic badge in a Design and Technology suite and to be members of the audience at the school musical production. We see these events as valuable experience for our older children to flavour the secondary school environment in preparation for their transition.

Environmental and nature studies are frequently carried out on Riddlesdown and Kenley Common, areas rich in flora and fauna, which we are fortunate to have on our doorstep.

We utilise the local swimming pool at Whyteleafe School and participate in Croydon schools sporting events including the swimming gala, a cross-country event, a badminton festival, Croydon schools athletics and we are members of the Croydon schools leagues for football and netball.

Visits to the Local Area

Much of our local history curriculum is delivered through visits to our local area which is rich in historical resources. We visit Kenley Aerodrome , the East Surrey Museum and walk around the local area noticing Victorian architecture and the railway stations which were part of the development of the railways back in Victorian time.

Key Stage Two pupils visit the Fairfield Halls for the Croydon Festival of Music Christmas concert.