UNICEF Gold Rights Respecting Schools Award

Our assessors praised our children's articulate knowledge and understanding of rights and the way our whole community lives these values daily.

British Values— democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance — are not a display on a corridor wall at Kells Lane. They are practised daily through our Smart School Council Class Meetings, our Kells Lane Cabinet, our places of worship visits, and our six-week Culture curriculum theme. Our Citizenship curriculum builds on this further, helping children understand their role in society and — crucially — that they have a voice within it.

We also take economic wellbeing seriously. Children develop age-appropriate financial literacy so they leave primary school equipped to make informed, confident decisions. And our Pupil Premium strategy ensures every child — regardless of background — can access the same rich experiences as their peers. Disadvantage is never a barrier to remarkable at Kells Lane.

Rights Respecting School (About Us menu tab)

Citizenship (Learning - Personal Development menu tab)

Pupil Premium (Key Info menu tab)

Smart School Council — Every Child's Voice, Every Week

The Smart School Council model is built on a simple but radical idea: every child's voice matters, not just the most confident few.

Traditional school councils often involve the same small group of pupils — typically those who are already most advantaged or most outspoken. Smart School Councils replaces this with pupil-led Class Meetings held across the whole school, so every child — regardless of background, confidence, or ability — has a genuine say in the life of the school. A Communication Team (our version of a school council) then gathers and acts on what they hear.

Kells Lane's approach has been featured by Smart School Councils as an example of best practice, and our pupils are visibly proud of the democratic culture they help to shape. This is pupil voice as a lived experience — not a display board exercise — and it connects directly to our Rights Respecting ethos, our TGMC emotional literacy work, and the value of Be Empowered. Our children don't just learn about democracy. They practise it every single week.

Most distinctively, we have the Kells Lane Cabinet — our own model of pupil leadership structured around the idea that children should have real influence over the direction and decisions of their school. The Cabinet gives Year 6 pupils a formal, prestigious leadership role that mirrors real-world democratic and civic structures, and connects directly to the values of our Smart School Council, our Rights Respecting ethos, and our commitment to Be Empowered. You can read more about our current Cabinet members and their roles on our website.

We believe that the children who leave Kells Lane having held these roles carry something with them that cannot be taught from a textbook — the knowledge, earned through experience, that they are capable of leading, serving, and making a real difference. That is what Find Your Remarkable looks like in Year 6.

Citizenship (Learning - Personal Development menu tab)

How we transformed our school council to improve communication and inclusion

We are a TGMC School- Behaviour and Regulation

TGMC, or ‘The Good Morning Club’, is an approach that uses building connections, positive psychology, and emotional regulation to create calmer, more positive, more purposeful, more engaged learning environments.

Behaviour and Attitudes

We are an emotionally literate school where pupils develop the skills of self-regulation and learning from mistakes by repairing and reflecting. We foster a sense of belonging and acceptance, so children grow to become honest, responsible citizens of their community.

Also, our staff have been trained directly by Paul Dix — author of When the Adults Change, Everything Changes — in his Positive Noticing approach. Rather than focusing on correction, we focus on connection: catching children doing the right thing, naming it, and building a culture of trust and belonging.

TGMC- What is it? Information for parents and carers

TGMC Parental Portal

Paul Dix: When The Parents Change

Whole-School Wellbeing

We are also a trauma informed school. Every member of our staff understands how adverse experiences can affect a child's brain and behaviour — and responds with knowledge and compassion rather than judgement. We don't ask "what is wrong with this child?" We ask "what has this child experienced, and how can we help?" Safety is not a barrier to education. It is the foundation of it.

Special Educational Needs & Inclusion (Key Info menu tab)

THRIVE (Key Info menu tab)

TGMC Parental Portal

Rooted in Place — Our Building, Our Story, Our Community

Ours has been at the heart of Low Fell for over a century — and that sense of place, of permanence, of belonging to something bigger than yourself, is something our children feel from their very first day. We are enormously proud of where we are and what this building represents.

We believe that knowing where you come from helps you understand who you are. That is why we work with local historian Peter Sagar to bring the story of Low Fell and Gateshead alive for our children — connecting them to their community in ways that make history feel genuinely personal rather than distant. This work has earned us the Heritage History Award.

One story above all others captures the spirit we want our children to carry with them. Sir Joseph Swan — inventor of the world's first practical incandescent light bulb — lived at Underhill on Kells Lane North, just streets from our school. His house was the first in England to be wired for domestic electric lighting. He changed the world, from the end of our road.

We use Joseph Swan's story not as a history lesson, but as a mirror. We hold it up and say to every child: this is what remarkable looks like. It starts with curiosity. It grows through determination. And it can happen anywhere — even here, even you. Swan is the most local, most vivid proof we have that Find Your Remarkable is not just a school motto. It is a fact.

We are proud to have original artwork by Charlie Rogers — the beloved Gateshead artist — displayed in our school. He painted Kells Lane itself, and our children visit Saltwell Park, one of his favourite subjects, seeing their local world through an artist's eyes.

History (Learning - Humanities menu tab)

Active Environmental Citizens — Not Just Learners

It is something they act on. We partner with Groundwork North East on real environmental projects, and our children have taken part in hands-on tree planting — physically putting roots in the ground and understanding exactly why it matters. We are also part of SchoolCycled, building genuine understanding of recycling, materials, and circular thinking in practical, memorable ways

Our Eco School Award recognise this commitment — but the real measure is children who leave us genuinely caring about the world they are inheriting, and believing they have the power to do something about it. You can follow all of this work in our school newsletters.

This is Be Empowered and Be Ambitious in their most urgent form — because the generation sitting in our classrooms right now will shape the future of this planet. We take that seriously.

Climate Education & Sustainability (Learning - Personal Development menu tab)

Newsletters (News menu tab)

Sporting Excellence

Physical Education (PE) (Learning - Personal Development menu tab)

Enrichment (Learning - Personal Development menu tab)

Music Mark of Recognition

Music (Learning - Creative Arts menu tabMusic Mark of Recognition for Ambition and Quality

Healthy Schools Award

Healthy Schools Report

Healthy Schools Certificate

Water Smart School - Royal Life Saving Society

This is the highest level of the Water Smart Schools programme — a rigorous, whole-school accreditation that requires us to teach water safety knowledge across every year group, take children on real-world water field trips, involve parents and the wider community, and embed a sustained commitment to keeping children safe in and around water. Drowning is one of the leading causes of child trauma-related deaths in the UK, and this award reflects our belief that every child — regardless of background — deserves the knowledge and skills to stay safe for life.

Water Smart Certificate Gold Kells Lane

Teaching Grounded in Evidence

Our teachers ground every approach in high-quality evidence, combining the best of current thinking with deep professional expertise about our own children and community.

One example of this in action: our staff are trained in Pupil Book Study, the method developed by curriculum expert Alex Bedford. Rather than simply checking that work is being done, Pupil Book Study is a rigorous, structured way of listening to pupil voice to evaluate the quality of our curriculum and the genuine impact of teaching on learning — not just what children produce, but what they actually understand and remember.

This means decisions about how and what we teach are shaped by real evidence from our own children, not guesswork. Your child benefits from teaching that is constantly refined, honestly evaluated, and genuinely responsive. This is what Be Curious looks like for the adults in the room.

Evidence Informed Practice (About Us menu tab)

The Foundations of Pupil Book Study

Trauma Informed School