Awards

Cirrus Primary Academy Trust has been awarded the Trust Value Award by Edurio and has achieved the enviable position of being in the top ten multi academy trusts in England.

This award recognises excellence in creating environments where staff feel confident in the value of being part of the trust. The CEO of Endurio states, 'The achievement highlights the importance of a supportive community where staff feel appreciated and aligned with the trust's mission.'

A Thinking Skills School is one that is committed to embedding structured thinking skills throughout its curriculum and culture. The aim is to develop pupils' cognitive abilities, enhancing their capacity for critical, creative, and reflective thinking while fostering lifelong learning.

Key features include explicitly teaching thinking strategies such as analysing, evaluating, and questioning, alongside the use of visual tools like Thinking Maps to organise and articulate ideas. Thinking Skills Schools also emphasise habits of mind, including persistence and metacognition, while promoting high-quality oracy and dialogue to enable collaborative exploration of ideas.

Metacognition is central, with students reflecting on their thinking processes and improving their learning strategies. A consistent framework ensures thinking tools and methodologies are applied across subjects and year groups, supported by a whole-school ethos that prioritises metacognitive, self-regulating learners.

Inclusion Quality Mark (IQM) provides schools with a nationally recognised framework to guide their inclusion journey. The IQM team help schools evaluate and measure how they are performing; empowering them to improve and grow.

This award recognises those IQM Inclusive Schools which continue to demonstrate a commitment to outstanding levels of inclusive best practice. Centre of Excellence status provides an opportunity to build on current capacity with ongoing support from the IQM team.

On 5th June 2024, Stanley Park Infants’ were assessed by IQM and retained its Centre of Excellence status.

The Department for Education recognises the direct link between positive mental health in schools and successful educational outcomes; the Mental Health Award for Schools builds on this link and provides a framework for educational institutions to evidence policies and initiatives that work towards improving emotional health and wellbeing for both staff and pupils. Stanley Park Infants' School was awarded 'Silver Status' in the Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in - School Mental Health Award (January 2020).

Our school has been awarded the Oracy Culture runner-up prize through the English Speaking Union, recognising our commitment to developing oracy—spoken communication skills—as a central part of our curriculum. This prestigious award highlights the impact of our efforts to transform students' confidence and communication abilities through uniquely developed teaching strategies.

The award is part of the Action Research Program, an initiative where teachers explore creative ways to embed oracy in their classrooms. This achievement reflects our dedication to building an oracy culture as part of delivering our curriculum and its lasting impact on empowering our children's journey with essential life skills.