STAFF at Lacock School pride themselves on it being a smaller, more community and family-orientated place for pupils to learn.

Lacock C of E Primary in the High Street welcomes 68 pupils through its doors from reception to Year 6. The small community school, which has been rated as good by Ofsted, prides itself on being a close-knit school where everybody knows each other.

Richard Hearn, head of Lacock, said: “Because we are a small school all of the teachers know all of the pupils.

"If a child is crying in the hallway then a teacher will know the child, the family and will have a strong relationship with them. The staff can support the pupils individually as well as in groups.”

Lacock Primary bases its teachings on two mottos: LPS which stands for Learn Together, Play Together and Succeed Together; and

LACOCK which means listen, active, creative, open to God, confident and kind.

"We say open to God because we are a Church of England school, we don’t make the pupils believe in any one thing but we are very close to our local church,” said Mr Hearn.

The pupils are encouraged to find their own answers while learning, being paired up to promote teamwork and problem solving.

“We like to nurture independence with the pupils. Instead of just giving them the answer we ask them to come up with answers themselves. "Instead of asking them to put their hands up, we put them in pairs so they can work together then ask all of them to give an answer. This way, if a child freezes up we can then ask them to discuss what they and their partner were doing. This lowers the stress, we aim to create a high challenge but with low stress,” Mr Hearn explained.

Lacock also offers laptops, iPads and musical instruments to its pupils as well as outdoor activities for break times.

“We have a mud kitchen so the children can play in the mud and we have a growing area where the younger years can sit and enjoy nature. We also do things like take all of the kids to the panto which is always fun,” added Mr Hearn.