Marlfields is a very special school. It is small enough to allow all staff to know all the pupils, whether they teach them or not.  The staff are highly committed to the aims and ethos of the School, dedicated to developing the full potential of all. We are committed to focusing on the individual and allowing pupils to grow in a pleasant and friendly atmosphere.

The School has a non-selective entry but achieves a great deal. HMI inspector for Ofsted report was very favourable and commented most positively on not only the academic achievements, but also the demeanour and positive attitude of the pupils. The pupils at Marlfields flourish in an environment that respects them as individuals and endeavours to develop all aspects of each one.

In these days of League Tables it is tempting to focus on academic life at the expense of other important aspects. At Marlfields we shall always be committed to education in the widest sense and develop the whole child.

Please contact the school for a copy of our full prospectus and we welcome you to visit us to see for yourself our vibrant learning community.

Abigail Rourke
Principal

Marlfields Classrooms

School Performance

Assessment Results for Key Stage 2 – Transition from Primary to Secondary

School Management & The Governors

The Board of Governors aim to be a cohesive and professional team who use our skills and experience to work in partnership with the staff and parents.  The Board shares the commitment that Marlfields should provide the best possible education for its pupils. The Board of Governors has a number of duties and responsibilities towards pupils, staff, parents, the local authority and the wider community.  If you are interested in joining our Governing Team, further details are found below.

Educational Standards

  • Ensuring the school fulfills the legal requirements of the education system
  • Setting challenging but achievable educational targets
  • Ensuring the school is adequately resourced and that its resources are utilised properly and creatively
  • Ensuring all pupils receive an excellent, well rounded education academically, morally and socially so that they can move forward into the world, fully equipped for the challenges they will face

Leadership

  • Developing a vision for the school and setting its strategic aims
  • Establishing the values that the school is expected to meet and maintain
  • Acting as critical friends – monitoring and evaluating performance and progress towards the school’s priorities and targets, supporting staff and challenging their expectations

Relationship with Stakeholders

  • Accountability – ensuring that the school is accountable to the children and parents it serves, to its local community, to those who fund and maintain it, as well as the staff it employs
  • Maintaining a close relationship with parents and the local community
  • Caring for the welfare and well being of staff and pupils.

The organisation of the Governing Board is shown below.  To contact a member of the governing team, please write to the Clerk to Governors, Marlfields Primary Academy, Waggs Road, Congleton, CW12 4BT who will forward to the relevant person.

The Governing Organisation

 

The Academy Trust Handbook (ATH) sets out the responsibilities and requirements relating to academy trusts’ financial governance and management. Compliance with the ATH is a condition of the funding agreement.  It provides an overarching framework for implementation of effective financial management and control.The funding agreement for Marlfields Primary Academy is available from the gov.uk Find and Compare schools section, under Workforce and finance.

The Board of Governors is required to achieve good value in the use of public resources.  We report on this via our value for money statement which can be viewed by clicking on the document below:

Value for Money Statement

We are required by law to publish our annual financial statements. This section will be updated on an annual basis when the report is issued.

Number of employees whose employee benefits (including employers pension contributions) exceeded £100K for the Year End 31 August 2023:

£110,001 – £120,000 = 1

The latest Signed Accounts are below:

Congleton Primary Academy Trust Ltd. Signed Accounts for Year End 31 August 2023

Congleton Primary Academy Trust Ltd. Signed Accounts for Year End 31 August 2022

Congleton Primary Academy Trust Ltd. Signed Accounts for Year End 31 August 2021

The latest SEND Annual Report for Marlfields Primary Academy is below:

SEND Annual Report 2021-2022

For a summary of attendance at Full Governing Board meetings from Autumn 2022, please click on the document below:

Full Governing Board Attendance

Attendance at all meetings from September 2023 is summarised below:

Trustee Attendance at all Meetings

For current Governing Board membership and their register of business interests, please click on the documents below:

Trust Board Membership

Register of Business Interest

The Full Governing Board meets 3 times a year; once every school term, to discuss matters relating to the running of the Academy. To view the minutes of the meetings this year, please click on the link below:

 

Full Governing Board Meeting Minutes Summer 2023

Full Governing Board Meeting Minutes Autumn 2023

Full Governing Board Meeting Minutes Spring 2024

In addition to the Full Governing Boards meetings there are 2 committees with duties delegated from the Governing Board.  The Terms of Reference are below:

Resources Chair: Chris Nield

Curriculum Chair: Jessica Rosson

The Governors work closely with the Senior Management Team to support Business Continuity Planning.  Business Continuity Plans provide a structured and informed response to specific threats that may occur to our educational setting.

MPS Business Continuity Plan

If you are interested in becoming a Member, Trustee/Director, including a Parent Trustee at Marlfields, here are some background documents from the Department of Education and the National Governance Association that you may find helpful:

Academy Trust Governance – Structures and Roles Descriptions

This document is designed to provide high-level information about the roles and responsibilties each structure and person holds in academy trust governance. The map and descriptors contained in this document serve as an introduction to, and clarificaiton of the roles in the governance system.  If you are interested in the role of a Member or Trustee, please contact the Clerk or Principal.

Trustee Role Description

Parent trustees, elected by the parents of the school, bring an important perspective but have the same responsibilities to the Trust as other Academy Trustees and need the same skills. Their role is to support the Trust, rather than act as parent representatives.

Parent Application Form

School Policies

The school has policies covering every aspect of school life.

If you have a specific requirement or query, please contact the school for assistance.  Please also be aware that policies are regularly reviewed and the school office can ensure the information you require is up to date.

The school Data Protection and Privacy Policy explains how we use and protect the personal data relating to you and your child. If you have any concerns or worries that our notice does not answer please do not hesitate to contact us.

Please find below information on admission to Marlfields Primary Academy.  Should you have any questions or require any further information please do not hesitate to call the school office on 01260 633120 to speak to one of us.  We also welcome you to visit us to see the school working.

Admissions Policy for Academic Year 2024/2025

Admissions Policy for Academic Year 2025/2026

Marlfields Primary Academy is an Academy Trust and the Governing Body is the Admissions Authority. The Admissions Policy has been designed to comply with the Schools Admissions Code 2021 and all relevant legislation, including that on infant class sizes, the Equality Act 2010, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the School Standards and Framework Action 1998. The academy will also observe the timetable and procedures for admission as set out in this code and the School Admission Regulations 2012.

No child will be admitted over the PAN of 30 unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Admissions to the Reception Year

Subject to the criteria set out below, children will be admitted in the September following their fourth birthday. Marlfields Primary Academy has an agreed admission number (the published admission number or PAN) of 30 pupils for entry in Reception. Marlfields Primary School will accordingly admit up to 30 pupils.

Places will be allocated by the Governing Body on the basis of applications received through the Cheshire East admissions system. This allows parents/guardians to apply for entry to any Cheshire East Primary School by means of the Cheshire East Primary School Common Application Form (CAF) available in the ‘Applying for school Places’ document published by Cheshire East Council (CEC) and on-line via the CEC website.

The school will offer places on a full-time basis from the start of the Autumn Term.

“In-Year” Admissions

In-year admissions will be handled by Marlfields Primary Academy. No child will be admitted over the PAN of 30 unless there are exceptional circumstances. Please see Cheshire East Website for details of how to apply for an in-year place.

Oversubscription Criteria for all types of admissions.

Once children with an Educational Health Care Plan naming Marlfields Primary Academy have been admitted, the places are allocated in accordance with the order of the following oversubscription rules:

  1. ‘Looked after children’ and children who were previously ‘looked after’. A ‘looked after’ is a child who is in the care of a local authority or being provided with accommodation by that local authority (as defined in section 22 of the Children Act 1989) at the time of making the application to school. Children previously ‘looked after’ are children who were looked after as defined above, but immediately after being ‘looked after’ became subject to an adoption, child arrangement, or special guardianship order. An adoption order is an order under section 46 of the Adoption and Children act 2002. A ‘child arrangements order’ is an order settling the arrangements to be made as to the person with whom the child is to live under section 8 of the Children Act 1989 amended by Children and Families Act 2014. Section 14A of the Children Act 1989 defines a ‘special guardianship order’ as an order appointing one or more individuals to be a child’s special guardian (or special guardians). This includes children who appear to (in the view of Cheshire East) have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.
  2. Siblings – pupils with brothers or sisters, step-brothers or step-sisters, foster brother or sisters, half-brother or half-sisters, adopted brothers or adopted sisters living together as part of one household, already attending the preferred school (in years reception through to Year 6) and expected to continue at the school in the following school year (i.e. at the time of admission). In relation to children of multiple births, exceptionally it may be necessary to offer places over the published admission number to ensure that, as far as possible, siblings (i.e. twins, triplets or children from other multiple births) can attend the same school.
  3. Children of staff – with more than two years’ service or those new members of staff recruited to meet a particular skills shortage.
  4. Children resident within the designated area of the school – children will be classed within this criterion if they and their parents/carers are resident within the area served by the school.
  5. Pupils living nearest to the school – measured using an Ordnance Survey address-point system which measures straight line distances in miles from the address point of the school to the address point of the place of residence.

An Admissions Panel that consists of 3 Trustees and 1 Independent person not employed by Marlfields Primary Academy will apply the oversubscription criteria.

Fair Access Protocol:

Marlfields Primary Academy participates in Cheshire East LA Fair Access protocol.  Please see the Cheshire East Website for further details.

Right of Appeal:

In the event of an unsuccessful application, parents have the right to appeal to an independent appeals panel against non-admission. Appeal forms can be requested from Marlfields Primary Academy. Where an in-year application and subsequent appeal are unsuccessful, the Admissions Authority will not consider a repeat application within the same academic year unless there has been a relevant and significant change of circumstances relating to the application, or a place has become available in school.

Marlfields Primary Academy does hold a waiting list and parents are asked to keep in touch to find out if a place has become available.

Further information can be found in the ‘Applying for school places’ document produced by Cheshire East.

For our latest Admissions policy please call 01260 633120.

 

The majority of children elect to stay at school during the dinner time. 

Children can either bring their own lunch, or have a school meal.  If children bring their own lunch, it should be in a proper container e.g. sandwich box. 
Please, for safety reasons, do not include hot drinks, soup, glass containers or fizzy drinks.
 
All infant pupils currently qualify for a free school meal under the government’s Universal Free School Meal Scheme. Infant children are children in FS2(Reception), Year 1 and Year 2.
 
KS2 pupils pay for their school lunches at a cost of £3.00 per day unless they are in receipt of low income tax credits.
 
Those children who are not in the above classes or in receipt of Free School Meals from the tax credits have to be paid for on the school Scopay payment system, before they are taken.
If you think your child may be eligible for Free School Meals please visit the Cheshire East Council website page.
Please contact the Mrs Hatton or Mrs Yoxall in the school office on 01260 633120 for more information.

Please note that where School Days are mentioned in a policy, this relates to term-time teaching days when our pupils are in school.  Schools Days do not include half-term and end of term holidays, weekends, in-service training (inset) days and bank holidays.