Crowland Primary School

Crowland Primary School is a community school in the heart of South Tottenham. It ‘almost’ shares a site with an outstanding Haringey secondary school, Gladesmore Community School.

Crowland is a school that is considered to be in an area of high deprivation, (top 25% of schools) and it is school where 97 % of its children have English as an additional language. The main school burnt to the ground in 2005, resulting in the children being, ‘bussed’ to other parts of the borough! The school had quite a history by the time I joined it in January 2011!

I didn’t expect to be the Headteacher when I joined Crowland Primary School, but found myself assuming that role from the word go as the substantive head had left. There were so many things to tackle not least of which was the history of underachievement and diminishing progress;

I was very mindful that an OFSTED inspection was imminent/ overdue and that within Haringey poorly performing schools were being rapidly issued with academy orders by the Department of Education.