Mayflower Primary School has just won a prestigious national award, two years after it was also named in the top three. It's an amazing achievement.
What perhaps makes it all the more remarkable is that the school isn't in an upmarket, affluent place, surrounded by green fields and tranquillity. In fact, it's in one of the most deprived areas of London.
The headteacher, Dee Bleach, said that pupils at the school, in Poplar, Tower Hamlets, often start school already dealing with difficulties at home. So when it was named as The Sunday Times' State Primary School of the year in 2023, having placed in the top three in 2021, it was a big moment.
To win the accolade, it achieved the best standard assessment test (SATS) results amongst all 1,500 state and independent primary schools surveyed by the Sunday Times. Dee has led the school since 2008 and she spoke to MyLondon about what the award meant and why she believes the school is so high achieving.
Dee said: "It's a real honour and it's a real tribute to our children, and our families and our staff. We feel very proud."
Asked whether it was motivating for teachers to see the school awarded in such a way, she added: "Children have all sorts of challenges. It's about children being confident and happy, enjoying learning. It's great if we get them to achieve really well in their SATS, but there's lots of measures for success in our school."
One of those challenges is poverty. In the Office for National Statistics Census 2021, the area in which the school is located was noted as having more than 60% of households classed as deprived in some form. This may be in education, employment, health or housing. This means that before the children arrive at the school, many of them are facing challenges at home.
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
Dee said: "The majority of our children, because we are in a borough of high deprivation, [have extra challenges] so the children when they first come to school, they are not speaking very much and yes the progress they make is phenomenal. [But] just when they started in September [and were struggling] and you see them by the spring term and they're talking to each other and playing happily and you know [they are] content learning, they really are what drives us."
It is not just in academia that the staff push the pupils, with dance one of the key ways the school inspires confidence in the children, as Dee explained: "I think all the staff are very caring but also have high expectations. We don't want them to just be happy, we want them to be learning and gaining in confidence.
"We have a very rich curriculum because children can be confident academically and then really shy about their movements. By taking dance classes it really helps them to be confident in their body."
Lessons outside of academia are very important for the school. Dee said that the children were constantly out in the city or welcoming visitors at the school and she believed this was one of the school's keys to success. It helps the children to get to know their city really well and gives them a good start to their learning.
Dee said: "We show them what the world could be like."
One recent visit was a dancer from the Akram Khan Dance company and there is a museum trip planned in the coming weeks for students. Aside from education, the school works to support the children in their everyday life.
It runs a free breakfast club and is part of the Felix Project, which delivers surplus healthy food to schools in deprived areas. The school has mental health weeks throughout the year and there is a play therapist who visits twice a week.
Dee explained that they wanted to "make sure school is a safe place and that children have trusted adults they can talk to and we can help them deal with what's going on and support the parents".
Like all schools, teachers are faced with challenging behaviour, but what makes Mayflower Primary School stand out from others is its approach to that behaviour. Dee said that she often thought of the motto "love them most when they deserve it least" when she is dealing with challenging behaviour.
"We don't know what happened that morning before they went to school. You know, it's trying to get children to reflect on how they're feeling and get them to feel a bit more positive. Blanket detentions probably wouldn't help," Dee said.
Mayflower Primary School is evidently excelling at educating its children and achieving amazing results, but Dee is fearful for the future. She explained that it was becoming increasingly difficult to balance the budget while offering a rich curriculum and support for the children.
She said: "Maybe the Government will start funding schools properly, that's why our teachers are on strike because if they do get a pay increase it comes out of our existing budget, the budget doesn't get any bigger. It's still a cut to education.
"I would hope that the Government would fund schools so that we have our future Londoners here, working and paying for your retirement. We need an active workforce and we need them to be well-educated. We need to put funding in education."
Dee's love for her job is evident and the results she gets speaks volumes about the work she puts in. MyLondon asked her what inspired her to go into education: "It sounds a bit corny, but it's a very worthwhile profession and you're making a difference. It's great to be around children, they're so full of hope and joy. Schools are joyful places, especially primary schools."
