Focus on outstanding school (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Focus on outstanding school

2:00pm Monday 18th February 2013 in Andover

IT would be easy for staff at Anton Junior School in Andover to become complacent due to the fact that the school is full to capacity and SATs results in English and Maths have been outstanding for each of the last five years.

However, there is absolutely no danger of that happening.

Although the school has had two excellent Ofsted reports in the last six years the staff are 100 per cent committed to ensure that they continue to develop and further improve their first rate provision.

The school definitely lives out its mission statement of ‘Educating the Whole Child’, as although teachers ensure that children achieve well in the academic subjects, performance in subjects such as drama, art and sport are given equally high priority.

The recent performances of Alice in Wonderland were a tremendous success as was the production of Dream On (a Shakespeare adaptation) at The Lights theatre last summer.

Having reached four Hampshire Cup Finals in 10 years Anton’s football team was delighted to bring home the county cup last season after a tense and tight final in Southampton.

Both the year 5 and 6 teams are through to the quarter finals of the county cup this season.

The highlight of last year for many at Anton, though, was when the school’s dance club won local and regional competitions to qualify for the National Dance Finals.

Head teacher Tom Donohoe said: “To have 37 of our pupils from year 3 to year 6 dancing on stage at The O2 [arena in London] was one of the proudest moments of my time at Anton so far.”