Vision and Values
Our school is named Kaizen - a Japanese word meaning incremental improvement. We are a dynamic, outstanding school with a beautiful outdoor provision. We are part of Eko Trust, a family of 10 schools across London, Suffolk and Brighton. We work with vigour and clarity to ensure all our children have the best possible start to their educational journey. Our 4 key values drive everything we do by developing strong, trusting relationships with children, families and staff.
WE ARE INNOVATIVE, COURAGEOUS, AMBITIOUS and NURTURING.
INNOVATIVE
As an outstanding school we strive for creative solutions, going above and beyond for our children and families. We move quickly when needed, adapting ways of working and teaching that have the best outcomes for children. We use educational research to make the best decisions for the way we teach and design our curriculum. Leaders at all levels are trusted to make decisions with the areas they lead on, having coaching opportunities with leadership coaches from our Trust Executive team. We have a wonderful outside space of 1.4 acres of land, which includes our Forest School provision. This links directly into our curriculum design, ensuring children have wonderful outdoor experiences. This gives children the opportunity to explore nature and problem solve that links to our broad and balanced curriculum. Our focus on skills supports communication development, critical thinking and teamwork.
COURAGEOUS
The feeling of confidence is crucial for us all, especially in the uncertain world we live in today. At Kaizen, building children’s confidence - to be courageous - runs through everything we do. From teaching children how to manage failure, understanding mistakes are part of learning and talking directly to them about success and being brave. How we support each other as a team too, is embedded in our continuous professional development and coaching and leadership programmes. We pride ourselves on developing everyone as leaders, whether that is how to lead yourself effectively, children, small teams or part of the organisation. Children have leadership roles within school too from lunchtime play leaders, to pupil council roles to Head Girl and Head Boy. We offer residentials: camping on our school field for Year 4, a 2 night stay at Fairplay House in Year 5 and a 3 night stay in France for Year 6. All of these experiences build children’s courage to try new things, become independent - developing them into brave young people.
AMBITIOUS
We are an ambitious team of caring professionals that have high expectations for every child’s progress and attainment. Our end of KS2 results are well above national (see data page), which puts our Year 6 children in a very strong position for life at Secondary school. For example our French curriculum means our children learn to Year 8 standard by the end of Year 6. The Kaizen team is committed to their own professional development that impacts on what they do for our children every single day. We instil the importance of being ambitious for ourselves and our children by the way we work collaboratively. Our curriculum expectations are in line with the National Curriculum, exceeding the expectations by providing a plethora of external visits, residentials and experiences that bring learning to life. Our Future Me programme within our curriculum broadens horizons and raises aspirations for children, to think about what they love and what they would like to be when they grow up.
NURTURING
Our 3 simple rules bring clarity and a sense of safety for all our children. At Kaizen we strive to be ready to learn, to be respectful and to be safe at all times. Everything leads from these 3 tenants, that create boundaries, structures and routines for our emotional safety. The team works closely with all our families, again going above and beyond to support. The strength of our Pastoral Team ensures that children have immediate access to therapeutic support, our families have workshops and guidance at all levels from phonics workshops to support with housing and social care. We have Thrive School Ambassador status which means we excel in delivering Thrive as an identification and support tool that supports children and their families.