AS a Church of England school Forest and Sandridge Primary sees it as its duty to offer a curriculum through the prism of Christian beliefs.

Head teacher Anna Wilcox says the school focuses on core Christian values including showing respect, care for one another, pride and trying your best.

Forest and Sandridge dates back to 1874 but recently had its official opening, attended by the Duchess of Cornwall, at its new Cranesbill Road premises on February 9.

Ms Wilcox said: “Our values run through everything that we do. The children are taught those values from the moment that they come into school.

“That is very key to everything that we do here. The health and wellbeing of the children is also massively important.

“We have been awarded the silver Healthy Schools Award after choosing to focus on activity as we noticed at break time there was a lot of children hanging around.

“Since the move it has been a very different job and we have jumped from 225 pupils to 314 on the roll and that is going to carry on growing.”

The school, which is set to expand adding a pre-school this September, was given an OFSTED rating of Good in 2010 and has maintained that level in subsequent visits.

Ms Wilcox, who has been head teacher since 2005, added: “I am very happy with the Good rating and the expectations from OFSTED have increased each time so it is more and more difficult to get outstanding.

“Since the move I can now spend more time on teaching and less on maintaining the building. Previously a lot of my time was spent on upkeep and maintenance.

“With the increases in the pupil numbers with the old building we had to attach additional buildings and had to be very creative to make the best use of the space.

“A lot of people were anxious that we would lose the family feel but we have had many compliments saying how nice it is.”