A very warm welcome to our small, rural Church of England school located in the village of Stogursey.
Having arrived at the school two years ago as the Senior Teacher, I now find myself in the exciting position of being Headteacher and feel so honoured that the community feels I am best-placed to lead it in its next chapter. The reason I got into teaching was to be able to help children to grow both in their abilities but also in character and I am so happy to be helping develop both adults and children alike!
What has always struck me about the children in Stogursey is how hard-working they are. You teach them something and they just run with it! The children have a wide variety of starting points and I have always been amazed at the progress all our children make here at the school. The children are also not afraid to give things a go and throw themselves into their learning.
The staff here amaze me with their dedication to knowing every individual child, their needs, and their mission to meet those needs. The teachers are so passionate about constantly improving the quality of education in the school and they engage with research critically to benefit the children. The Teaching Assistants are so dedicated in going the extra mile for those children who need it and the cleaners are so caring when it comes to maintaining what is such a beautiful building. Our Pre-school Team also works so hard to ensure children get an excellent start to life in our community.
Our community is so actively involved with what we do. Without our army of volunteers, we would find it hard to run most of the things on offer. From the Friends of Stogursey School to our very active local governors, from the Reading Partners to our site working parties, our school thrives on the community getting involved with what is going on.
I was delighted to watch our children collaborating with the other Quantock Education Trust schools to produce a dance show at the start of last year's Character Conference at the McMillan Centre and quickly after that seeing the children proudly unveiling their high-quality Art Exhibition in and around the Victorian arches inside the school building. Our children really enjoy performing and I always enjoy seeing the fruits of their labours.
Despite our best efforts to ensure the COVID lockdown didn't have too much of a negative effect on the children's education, we are aware that the biggest ever catch-up is now looming. What helped was the constant staying in touch with families, the weekly deliveries of learning packs, and contact between pupils and teachers. Our goal now is to find a way to close any gaps that have emerged during this crisis and close them so that children get back to where they need to be and quickly! We will of course balance this with work on wellbeing and mental health in particular.
In the long-term, our goal is to grow what we offer as a school and broaden experiences and outlooks. Combined with work on mental health, we believe our knowledge-based curriculum has the power to develop character and shape futures.
Most visitors to school websites are looking for news, who's who and the calendar. If this welcome has got you interested in our school and what we are about then why not contact us to arrange a visit? We are so proud of our school and we would love for you to be a part of this.
All the best
Gary Tucker
Headteacher