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Twitter Wall

08/03/24

What a fantastic effort from staff and children alike! pic.twitter.com/djOEwN86g7

15/02/24

Early years funding is changing! Please do visit https://t.co/53rGglU3qC to find out more. From September we will be offering places for 2 years olds. Please contact us to arrange a tour of our fantastic nursery. We look forward to welcoming you soon. pic.twitter.com/rOGAqXd0yc

08/02/24

Did you know many working parents can now apply for funding for their 2 year old's childcare? For more details please visit the Childcare Choices website. Our nursery will offering places for 2-4 year olds from September. Please contact us to find out more on 01295 574004 pic.twitter.com/9VMIzxm7tS

08/02/24

Did you know many working parents can now apply for funding for their 2 year old's childcare? For more details please visit the Childcare Choices website. Our nursery will offering places for 2-4 year olds from September. Please do contact us to find out more 01295 574004 pic.twitter.com/htfauAi4wJ

12/01/24

A first for Cherry Fields! We are very excited to have welcomed Tom from into school today. Some excellent budding musicians had their first go with keyboards and guitars today. pic.twitter.com/ozzmLK7blH

07/12/23

We are very proud to show off the fabulous Christmas artwork by our Darwin and Nightingale classes, which is proudly on display at Banbury Library.If you pop down please have a look, they have pride of place as you enter! Amazing work! pic.twitter.com/LmhO1Y2fMm

13/11/23

Please join us at our next open event, in preparation for choosing your Reception places for next September. The Head Teacher will give a presentation, a tour of the setting and allow our prospective families the opportunity to ask any questions they may have. pic.twitter.com/QRfJMG6F46

06/11/23

The Year 3 class have had a very creative day with Banbury BID building their own lanterns, for the Christmas Parade around Banbury Town. Wonderful skills demonstrated by our children and our grown up helpers too! pic.twitter.com/5vhlM1Z4zJ

05/10/23

We would like to say a huge thank you to the "Outstanding" team here at Cherry Fields. Our PTA presented the team with some custom made cakes and a card to show their appreciation and continued support. pic.twitter.com/T0uwAnXSKH

03/05/23

On Friday we had the pleasure of welcoming the Canal and River Trust into school for a water safety assembly. Fabulous engagement from all our pupils and some great information shared. Thank you pic.twitter.com/AAawXJCXFX

26/04/23

Our Year 2 class enjoyed their first cooking lesson this week. Attenborough class made their own dough and chopped the toppings for their pizza's. They then took these home with instructions on how to cook for their dinner! pic.twitter.com/oVeur5USgF

29/03/23

We recently welcome a talented local artist into school to work with our reception class. Delia shared her work, style, media and inspirations as well as running activities with the children allowing them to learn new techniques. pic.twitter.com/bC54lcPBNv

06/03/23

Thank you Banbury Library for sharing these beautiful pictures of our Year 1 and Year 2 class' art work after their trip to the library to celebrate World Book day 2023. pic.twitter.com/o4TfzWAOfu

03/03/23

What a fantastic week celebrating World Book day! We have had breakfast and a book with our families, our reading challenge, school trip to Banbury library and now our favourite book character costumes. pic.twitter.com/PgiYCY5F89

28/02/23

We had a fantastic turn out for our breakfast and a book morning. pic.twitter.com/ivsxxG3XZZ

03/02/23

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03/02/23

We welcomed in some of our parents/carers yesterday to assist with our community art project. They are helping create a fabulous Cherry Tree out of recycling materials. We cant wait to see it completed! pic.twitter.com/xKuiEkVmUv

03/02/23

Here is our fabulous Reception class team dressed up for NSPCC number day! pic.twitter.com/WAqISJoTNF

02/02/23

Congratulations to everyone at Banbury primary school rated as 'outstanding' in very first Ofsted inspection https://t.co/CfXF4f8o7t

02/02/23

We are officially OUTSTANDING!Read the report: https://t.co/lH4NF8tPejWe are also in the local news! Read the report here: https://t.co/rlS9iNGxUWWe couldn't have done this without our amazing staff, pupils and supportive family community - well done everyone! pic.twitter.com/GzUcCQlN25

Posted on: 16/11/2020

Celebrating a decade of collaborative success

Cherry Fields Primary School is joining our GLF colleagues in celebrating a decade of partnership working which started with Glyn School and Danetree Primary and now has more than 40 schools, including our own.

October saw the milestone anniversary of the two schools working together to lay the foundations for what, a decade later, has become GLF Schools, with 41 secondary and primary schools across five different local education authorities.

GLF’s CEO Jon Chaloner was head teacher of Glyn when it began, and has since moved to his current position, covering the whole group and guiding that initial partnership onwards, outwards and upwards to what it has become today. 

He said what began out of necessity soon emerged as an opportunity for something much bigger and more innovative. 

“At the end of September 2010, Danetree did not have a permanent head teacher, so the local authority asked local schools for their availability to help,” he said. 

“Glyn was a National Support School and I was, and still am, a National Leader of Education, so the motivation was simple. Danetree’s children needed leadership as soon as possible, so we put together a team to help, and things developed from there.” 

Glyn had been through something of a transformation of its own with its Ofsted rating moving from satisfactory to outstanding across the course of seven terms between 2006 and 2009, so Jon said it was clear that they were in a position to lend a helping hand. 

“We were ideally placed to share our experiences of a rapid school improvement journey but we soon learnt how the primary sector was different, so we couldn’t just replicate what we’d achieved at Glyn,” he said.

“This has proved to be a valuable lesson for what GLF has gone on to become. One size does not fit all when it comes to schools, and things need to be made to measure. We always bear that in mind.” 

The collaboration was important for both schools and current head teacher at Glyn, Matt Duffield, explained: “The journey in school improvement that Glyn has been on since the partnership with Danetree began in 2010 has been remarkable. We are delighted that this association has developed into a much richer and broader relationship with the 40 other schools and 15,000 children.”

Long-term planning and learning lessons for future projects were nowhere on the agenda at this point, however.  

“The partnership was only intended to last for that one academic year,” Jon continued.  “Link-ups of this sort between schools were becoming common at that time, but this was the first occasion in Surrey where a primary and a secondary school had teamed up that way. 

"It was a win-win situation, though. Danetree needed leadership to address matters from its Ofsted report the previous year, and it was a great opportunity for Glyn’s 12 Advanced Skills Teachers to gain more experience in that field. 

"Unintentionally, it soon became clear how much both sides were benefitting from the experience, and how advantageous it might be to pursue it further.” 

The head teacher at Danetree school Bethan Smith said the school had ‘benefited unreservedly from the support provided by GLF.

“As a result of effective partnership working, sharing expertise and learning from one another, Danetree has gone from strength-to-strength. The highly skilled central team provides support and challenge, which has enabled all schools within the trust to work effectively to achieve a common goal. I feel privileged to be part of the academy trust,” she said.

A subsequent Ofsted inspection in November of that year noted Danetree’s improvements as a result of the partnership, so much so that the local authority asked Glyn’s governors to extend it for the year 2011-12, which Danetree’s governors welcomed. This later became permanent, and as Glyn was an academy, Danetree converted to being one as well, and in September 2012 GLF Schools was founded. 

Shortly after this, GLF Schools received an approach from the governors of another local school, Cuddington Croft Primary, and later that year the Department of Education identified Glyn as a potential sponsor for several other underperforming Surrey primary schools, with four more schools joining in autumn 2013, and two brand new primaries also signing up. GLF Schools was starting to grow, and has continued to do so, but only as and when it feels right. 

“Today GLF comprises schools that have chosen to join, brand new schools that we have opened and also three more sponsored schools where there was a record of underperformance,” Jon said. 

“The blend of schools is strategic, rather than a random collection. Expansion has needed to be based upon the geography of our existing schools as well as being in a position to support all schools, whatever their performance at that time.” 

Despite many schools now bearing the GLF brand, Jon says the priority has always been the individuality of the school, not the group identity. “We always aim that schools should retain their individual identity and place in their local community, with our identity being less prominent,” he said.  “One thing that I hope does unite us all, though, is the message of being stronger with us than without us. That was the philosophy when it was just two schools, and it remains the same now.” 

GLF Schools’ greatest achievement over the last 10 years, Jon says, is the pupils its schools have produced. “Their personal achievements are vast and these are enabled through the partnerships between home, school and the trust,” he said.  

“Our schools are bound by a sense of purpose for our children and their families, and our leaders and governors contribute in many ways to the group’s continued development. We are one team, with many shared aspirations for each school.” 

The past 10 years have taken an initial two schools on a journey to something much bigger than anyone involved at the start could have anticipated, and when it comes to looking forwards, Jon is happy to keep his head down and continue encouraging the good work across the group. 

“In five years’ time we’ll still be here, supporting schools to be the best they possibly can be,” he said. 

“Education is essential for our society. Our schools will continue to be schools for their local communities, a place where all children who attend have the opportunity to ‘grow, learn and flourish’.”