Headteacher’s welcome
Droxford Junior School is a beautiful rural school, in the Meon valley, nestled in the hills of the South Downs National Park. A school has been in the village since the mid 1800s – the current school opened between the wars in 1929. We work closely with the South Downs National Park and have recently been bestowed the honour of becoming an Ambassador School for the National Park. This is in recognition of our enriched curriculum; commitment to outdoor education and support made to other schools.
Today our families come from far and wide. We have two fantastic, linked Infant schools which are Federated as a Meon Valley Infant school federation (Meonstoke Infant School and Newtown / Soberton Infant School) and our confident, happy children move on to be successful in a number of state and private secondary settings.
I have been at the school for over fifteen years and have seen it grow into an outstanding school for our children. We have a team of highly skilled teachers, SENCo, ELSA and teaching assistants; very proactive governors, wonderful office team and incredibly supportive parents. Our friendly and kind children access a contextual curriculum that provides dynamic opportunities to develop their vocabulary, knowledge and skills through exciting and enriched learning opportunities. We are proud of our children; their attitudes to learning and behaviour around the school. Our School Values: Respect, Kindness and Responsibility, provide everyone with the expectations we all aspire to.
We ensure that we provide motivating enrichment opportunities in order for our children to move on to the next stages of their learning with confidence, maturity and the ability to readily access a secondary curriculum. With the support of all stakeholders we have developed our ‘Skills for Learning’. By developing these positive habits and characteristics in our children – Tenacity, Curiosity, Creativity and Collaboration – we believe we can strengthen our children’s ability to overcome challenges they face in their next phase of their education, careers and lives.
Our school has continually proved to be highly successful academically and our children have achieved excellent attainment and progress scores in English and Maths. We have been one of Hampshire’s top performing Junior schools for a number of years and continually produce standards of attainment, by the end of Year 6, which is far higher than National Standards. This, however, isn’t our core purpose. We endeavour to ensure our curriculum meets the needs of all learners. One of our main school Aims is for our children to be happy, safe and to have fun whilst they attend our school.
Therefore, not only do we ensure our learning is inspiring and motivating but also that the curriculum is contextual: closely aligned to the Geography and History of the South Downs National Park. We work closely with the Park Authority to enliven the learning and, as previously stated, been named an Ambassador School for the National Park. For more information on our collaborative work with the SDNP, see below.
All four year groups attend residentials: Camping in Year 3; three days away at Runways End activity centre in Farnborough in Year 4; three days sailing in Year 5 at Langstone Harbour, Portsmouth and one week at Calshot activity centre in Year 6. The children have the opportunity to attend exciting day trips including the Southampton City art gallery, Watercress Steam railway line, D-Day Museum, River Meon field studies, Butser Ancient farm and visit the Mary Rose at the Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth, as well exploring the local environment linked to the various subjects studied in school.
FODS (Friends of Droxford School) support the school with fantastic fundraising events which help to pay for whole school music tuition; visiting authors; Young Shakespeare theatre company and local artists to enrich experiences and add to the cultural capital gain for all our children.
We also offer the children a raised awareness of further education by engaging with the local universities – the children actually going to University themselves for a day! Closer to home we offer a range of clubs to participate throughout the year which has included: football, cricket, French, film, comic writing, chess, dance, golf, STEM, judo, gardening, violin, yoga, guitar, art and drama to name a few. Finally, our children learn how to keep themselves safe; consider health and wellbeing through lessons in our curriculum and through specialists visiting our school.
I fully believe that by utilising our Skills for Learning and School Values; by achieving our School Aims and delivering a motivating and inspiring curriculum we will achieve our School Vision…
'Equipping our children with the knowledge and skills to navigate life successfully'
Matthew Dampier
Headteacher
March 2023
‘Equipping our children with the knowledge and skills to navigate life successfully’.
Together we can make Droxford Junior School outstanding for your child.