Principal's Welcome

Vision - Motto - Mission - Values - Ethos - Aims

On behalf of our pupils, staff and governors I would like to welcome you to St Giles Spencer Academy, the only primary special school in Derby City. We have the specialist knowledge and skills to meet the needs of pupils aged 4 to 11 years with a diverse range of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). We are a warm and welcoming school community and we consider ourselves to be like one big ‘happy family’.

We are a large inclusive special school which is split across two sites which provide a ‘world class’ education for our pupils. Our first site, which is our main site cater for Early Years (Reception), Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 pupils, this may include those with severe learning difficulties, profound needs and more complex sensory needs. Pupils may also have other associated needs including complex physical disabilities, health or care needs. Our second site, is located less than a 5-minute drive away from our main site. Known as The Hive, it caters for Key stage 1 and Key stage 2 pupils, which have moderate learning needs and other associated need such as high functioning ASD, Speech & Language and Social, Emotional, Mental Health Needs (SEMH).

Prior to being Principal, I taught at St Giles, leading the Early Years provisions (now The Nest) and the classes that are now called The Hollow as an Associate Assistant Headteacher. Having previously taught for seven years at St Giles, I feel that I know the school, the curriculum and the school’s values well. My heart has always been with the children and the families of St Giles, and I am thrilled to have returned to the school. 

I have a passion for inclusion and understand that all children are unique and will have their own bespoke learning journey and that working together is key for progress and learning. Together we can support our children to progress with life-long learning opportunities to develop their communication and independence, and to be successful within their community.

On 1st November 2019 St Giles joined the Spencer Academies Trust (SAT). This is a ‘family’ of 20+ mainstream primary and secondary schools. St. Giles is the only special school to be a part of SAT. This is a unique and exciting partnership where ASPIRATION | PARTNERSHIP | RESPONSIBILITY underpin the work of all of the schools within SAT. Outside of SAT, St. Giles continues to work in close partnership with many special and mainstream schools, both locally and nationally.

Website features

We hope that you find our website clear, informative and easy to navigate. It is designed to give you a flavour of the creative and vibrant life of our school, the excellent work of our pupils and the inspiring education we strive to achieve. To promote our inclusive approach and to celebrate cultural diversity amongst our school community, we have incorporated two key features in to our website to ensure that the information can be more widely accessible:

• Symbol support - Scroll over any word, which will automatically highlight it in yellow. Once in yellow, give it just a few seconds before a symbol appears to match the word. This will provide a visual prompt for readers
• Language converter - Go to the top of the website to find the tool bar titled 'language'. Use this feature to convert the main text on each page in to a language of your choice. There are over 100 different languages to choose from!

In addition to viewing our website, we warmly invite you to come and visit our school to find out more. To arrange this please telephone the school office.

Kind regards,

Kim Smith

Principal

Our school vision

A forward-thinking 'centre of excellence’ where pupils are at the ‘heart’ of all decision-making. Driven by being ‘world class’, we relentlessly focus on creative,  inspirational and ambitious teaching, which maximises pupils' opportunities to learn and achieve!

Our school motto is:

'Inspire and achieve through creativity!'

Our school mission

Our mission is to:

• Provide pupils with effective strategies to communicate
• Promote pupils independence
• Prepare pupils for life in the local and wider community

Our curriculum 'drivers' are CiC:

Communication - Independence - Community

Our school ethos & values

St. Giles School strives to be a ‘centre of excellence’ for specialist teaching and learning. We have a firm commitment to working with families, other schools and organisations and value their input and support in achieving the very best outcomes for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.

We strive to:-

• Create a ‘family’ ethos….

where children, governors, staff, parents/carers and the wider community feel welcomed and valued, working positively together to achieve excellent outcomes for our children.  We are a place where everyone can learn and laugh together, making school a happy, positive and exciting place to be!

• Have strong distributed leadership….

which empowers the school community to promote independent learning through creativity and encourages all to ‘take risks’, have a go, try something new and dare to be different!

• Have high expectations….

of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, with everyone striving to do their very best. We are a school community with a ‘can do’ attitude!

• Celebrate all successes….

both within and outside of school; including academic and social achievements, with a strong emphasis on celebrating those small steps of achievement too!

Our school aims

At St. Giles we aim to:

• Provide a broad, balanced, age appropriate and relevant curriculum that enables pupils to develop, progress and achieve to the best of their ability
• Provide a ‘total communication environment’ that maximises pupil’s communication skills
• Create opportunities for all pupils to work together in a positive and meaningful way
• Create a stimulating, exciting and enjoyable learning setting which promotes independence, initiative and emotional well-being
• Work closely and collaboratively with parents, carers and other professionals
• Respect difference and diversity and promote an attitude of understanding and tolerance
• Ensure opportunities to promote inclusion in its widest sense within school, in other educational establishments and with the wider community
• Provide high quality staff development, school-to-school support and outreach work so that other children with Special Educational Needs can benefit too