We visit a Sandwell school where its pupils are prepared for the future and given opportunities to develop

Hamstead Primary School in Great Barr has been a leading place for learning from children aged between three and 11 for nearly 80 years as two separate schools and, since 2023, as one amalgamated school.

Its mission is to provide a safe, nurturing and happy environment for pupils to learn and grow into confident, independent and motivated individuals and offers a broad and balanced curriculum delivered through exciting and stimulating activities.

This includes increased access to sports, reading and music and providing a wide range of extra-curricular activities for pupils to engage with.

Headteacher Nick Fowler said he had taken the previous Infant school’s vision of dream, believe and achieve and worked to embed that with other core values to help provide the right space for the pupils to develop.

He said: “We wanted to bring the community together as one and we’ve taken the infant school vision and combined it with a Hamstead vision of honesty, perseverance and success and we’ve just tried to embed that and come together as one school that feel the local community.

“It’s all about preparing the pupils for the next stage of life, whatever that is, and we want to prepare them to become young adults. That’s the main vision, to equip them with learning, but also wider skills as well.

“This includes things like the Forest School area for younger children, the reading bus to stimulate reading and different school clubs, so we want them to learn and that’s our core values, but we also want to try and develop interests wider than that that stimulate them.”

Mr Fowler said the extracurricular side of school was one which was very important, with the music side being a big part of it, and said that while there were always budget constraints, the school would always try to provide a good environment for learning.

He said: “We have external people come in and, for example, years three and four do Ukulele every week, while year sixes do rock band, with 30 children in each class and they’ve got electric guitars, speed guitars, drums, keyboards and double basses playing.

“We always look at how we can develop and while, yes, there are always budget restraints, which are all too common for every school, we’ve got a lovely environment and we’re very blessed to have that with the one school.

“There has been redevelopment of the grounds, with wellbeing areas being created, so we obviously want the children ready for their learning and we want to educate them, but we want to take it further with what we can offer.”

Other activities include pupils being able to have swimming lessons and take theatre visits and Mr Fowler also said there were plenty of community projects run by the school as well.

This includes visiting residential homes in the local area to do art projects with residents, doing food collections with food banks at harvest time and also working with local churches around Christmas and Easter time.

Mr Fowler said he felt Hamstead Primary School had become a family school and place where children could develop and become better versions of themselves.

He said: “I know it sounds a bit cliched, but it’s a family here and we want to be a welcoming environment for the children and families, and working in partnership for the wider community.

“We want our children to be honest with themselves and with each other and persevere in everything they do and make success at every level.

“It’s not about grades at the end of the day, it’s about helping develop children and providing them with a family-centred school.”