Parish of Leatherhead
Leatherhead Trinity School and Children's Centre
A Voluntary Controlled School: Anglican, Methodist and United Reformed Churches in Leatherhead.

website: http://www.leatherheadtrinity.surrey.sch.uk/index.html

from the May 2008 Parish Magazine
Leatherhead Trinity School and Children's Centre
Leatherhead Trinity is, of course, a Church school; a Voluntary Controlled School with an ecumenical foundation (Anglican, Methodist and URC, the three Covenanting churches in Leatherhead; our Head is a Roman Catholic and we hope soon to be working with the Baptists as the Children's Centre expands). Church schools have come in for quite a bit of criticism recently. On the one hand, there is the fear that schools with a strong but narrow religious focus might indoctrinate children in beliefs society as whole is uncomfortable with, be that a fear of Islam or concern at Christian schools promoting a particular Creationism over evolution.

On the other hand, many church schools are in deprived areas, which sounds laudable; but the Church of England and its critics bandy around contradictory statistics claiming that these schools either do or do not select better-off children from those areas and actually make the problems even worse for the rest of the community. In between, many of us are surely uncomfortable with churches using the need to obtain the necessary clergy signature to get a child into a church school as a crude tool to get parental bums on seats; and many secularists question why the state should endorse and, arguably, subsidise faith presence in education at all.

Against those criticisms, how do we fare in Leatherhead? We do not select children on faith grounds. As a Voluntary Controlled school, rather than the Voluntary Aided schools, which are more in the control of the church and less of the local authority, we are not allowed to. But even if we could choose our own admissions policy, it would have no church-attendance clauses. We are providing a school, a service for the whole community of Leatherhead, and that is an imperative, which stems from our beliefs; an inclusive admissions policy is intrinsic.

Similarly, our curriculum is the localauthority one; we do not seek any supposedly Christian slant to science or any academic subject. We do, though, try to provide a richer experience of assemblies and RE as a consequence of our church ethos. Our children will, I would like to think, leave us having imbibed more of the Christian story, more of the experience of worship, more awareness of their own spiritual feelings, or at its most basic just having more familiarity with churches and hymns, than may be the norm in an increasingly secular age.

If they also understand more of the Islamic tradition (our Year 5 children have just visited a Mosque, one of the after-school clubs we offer is in Arabic, and we have staff and pupils from many faiths, including Islam, and none) that is surely something secularists should thank us for.

With regard to siphoning off middle-class children, the situation in Leatherhead is the reverse of that which gets criticised in some deprived areas. We all recognise that parts of Leatherhead are indeed deprived, and other parts affluent. Our vision is for a single school and children's centre for the whole community, a school that does its part to eradicate the divisions and build cohesion across our town. I have to say we're not there yet; but where we are making real progress is in our provision for the more needy, through the numerous services on offer at the Children's Centre and through the special-needs provision at the School.

The church, providing service to the whole community, working especially with children, offering most to the most in need is surely where we should be, and is surely hard to criticise. Perhaps when our new building is finished, we can complete the vision of the church serving the whole community.
John Swanson, Chair of Governors

from the January 2008 Parish Magazine
Leatherhead Trinity School and Children's Centre
The last item on Leatherhead Trinity School and Children's Centre in the Parish magazine may have come over as slightly despondent; it emphasised the difficulties caused by the delays in getting planning permission for our new building. Now, we can all be much more positive: not only do we have our planning permission, but also work has actually started!

A reminder of what we're talking about: we combined the three schools, St Mary's, All Saints and The Woodville, a year ago, to form Leatherhead Trinity, a single new Church primary school for Leatherhead. But we are still using the existing buildings. The former All Saints building in Aperdele Road has been successfully expanded and adapted for the Children's Centre. But to complete the project and to fulfil the vision that lay behind it, we need a new building for the school on the Woodville Road site.

The new building was much delayed but that's now history. The important thing is that we received planning permission in October, and work has now started. We've installed a temporary canteen so that we can demolish the old canteen and clear that part of the site; and we've remodelled the entrance to make it suitable for construction traffic. Then we start the serious earth moving needed to create flat areas out of the current sloping site; we start the new building and around Spring 2009, God willing and the weather permitting, we move in.

The building is costing over £8M. For that, Leatherhead will get a new concept in design. Gone is the traditional corridor; instead, running the length of the building is a "village street", tall, light and airy, and forming not just a functional way to get from one room to another but a creative space in its own right. The rooms then open off the village street; on one side, the offices, Hall, studio, kitchen and so on; on the other, the classrooms in two storeys. There is more besides: space for the language unit; the offices of Mid Surrey Arts; and outside, an amphitheatre as well as the sports facilities.

And one final feature that you don't find in every primary school: a quiet area with a spiritual focus. We are, after all, a Church school. We believe in educating the children not just in the traditional curriculum but in all that makes the fullness of human life - and for those of us involved in the school from a church setting, that includes a sense of something bigger than ourselves, something spiritual, something which we locate in the Christian story. Our building will help us deliver all our aspirations.
John Swanson

from the August 2007 Parish Magazine

Leatherhead Trinity School and Children's Centre is now completing its first year. Everyone in Leatherhead should know about us, if only because children now walk round in a single red uniform rather than the various shades of blue and green of the previous St Mary's, All Saints and The Woodville. But there could be some confusion about exactly what is happening given that those same three school buildings are still in use. Has anything actually changed?

There were two parts to the vision of Leatherhead Trinity. One was creating the Children's Centre, bringing together childcare, the whole range of State services for children, and the work of the All Saints Family Project. It operates out of much improved buildings on the All Saints site at Aperdele Rd, is run by a manager, Hazel, operating under the overall structure of the school and its Head and Governing Body, and is spectacularly successful, becoming, in its first six months, the only local provider to be rated "outstanding" by Ofsted. It is undoubtedly making a difference to the lives of families in North Leatherhead and beyond.

The other part of the vision was bringing the three existing infant and junior schools together into a single new primary school, in a new building. We've done the "people" bit of that. As well as a single uniform, we have a single Head, Alison; a single Governing Body (David, Ian and Dean are Governors, as are several other church members, reflecting the three-way church foundation); a single curriculum, budget, staffing structure, and ethos, we are a single school in everything ... except for the linchpin of the vision: a new building.

It may sound as if this should not matter too much. Surely real value comes from people, not from bricks and mortar? Maybe I started the year thinking a bit of that myself. But experience shows it just isn't so. Organisationally for the management, for the curriculum, for the staff, for continuity for the children any school on three sites is trying to run with one foot in a bucket of concrete. And the physical surroundings, the atmosphere they create and the facilities they provide make a huge difference to the nurture of children, something that should not surprise us as churches. Until we get that new building, the vision is, frustratingly, stalled.

Why the delay? The Planning Application was far too late going in. Then, in June, the Planning Committee voted (on a tied, 7-7 vote) not to grant permission but to refer it back for more work. The proposed building itself is wonderful, reflecting an £8M price tag, a measure of the investment Surrey are prepared to put into Leatherhead. The problem is the access to the site, the top half of the existing Woodville grounds. Is it possible to accommodate the car movements on Kingston and Woodville Roads? Can we realistically persuade parents out of cars onto foot? These are the issues where the Planning Committee were not yet persuaded and so the building is delayed by another six months.

How do we balance the concerns of the local residents with the broader imperatives for the community? Shaped by the input from the churches alongside others, one of the values of Leatherhead Trinity is that we are part of the community, not just a place to send children during school hours, but an integral part of the life of a town. That means the local concerns are our concerns too, and as a school we have been urging Surrey not just to force this through roughshod but to find a solution that works for everyone. But it also explains the hurt and frustration as the needs of the community, not just the school, are left unmet.

Leatherhead is largely united round a vision of how to go forward. Churches, staff, Governors, and parents, we're all in it because we want to make a difference.

Watching yet another generation of our children in Leatherhead receive less than we know we could give them is not what education should be about.

Meanwhile the staff, despite the problems and the stress, are working very hard for the well-being of the children; as well as the "outstanding" Ofsted tag for the Children's Centre, standards are significantly improved at the school this year too. We are a church school. As a church community, we share our undoubted strengths and successes with you; and our problems and frustrations too. John Swanson Chair of Governors

from the August 2006 Parish Magazine

Both our church schools, St Mary's and All Saints, will formally be coming to a close as independent Voluntary Controlled Schools in their own right this month. Both schools have served Leatherhead for over 100 years and were originally brought into being by local church initiatives. Each school plans an eventful closure day when all that has been achieved by them in the past and present can be celebrated: St Mary's is on Tuesday 25 July, and All Saints on Wednesday 26 July.

These formal closures mark the turning point in the coming into being of the new Voluntary Controlled Leatherhead Trinity Primary School and Children's Centre. For about the next two years education will continue on these same sites, and longer at All Saints with the Foundation Stage remaining in place as part of the newly created Children's Centre.

This is a One-Stop-Shop incorporating a range of children's and family services alongside early years education. Eventually the present Woodville and St Mary's School will come into the new school being built on the Woodville site.

These changes have meant a great deal of uncertainty at times for teaching and non-teaching staff. All Saints has experienced the disruptive creation of the Children's Centre around them whilst continuing to function as an Infant and Nursery School.

St Mary's has had the disappointment of knowing that it will not continue as a separate school at all. Although the changes are positive and life-giving to a new phase in primary education, the passing of old and well-trusted friends will be a time of sadness as well as celebration.

We thank both schools, and also all who have worked at The Woodville School, for all they have given to generations of children; and we look forward with enthusiasm to the coming into being of Leatherhead Primary School and Children's Centre with its unique support from the Anglican, Methodist and United Reformed Churches.

Before Trinity - All Saints and St Mary's

last updated 14 Jan 2008