Welcome to the Ashton Keynes School Home Page. Ashton Keynes School is a thriving village school situated in the beautiful village of Ashton Keynes (Wiltshire's Village of the Year 2007).  We are a voluntary controlled, Church of England school linked to the Bristol Diocese through the local church.  At present 176 children, between the ages of 4 and 11, attend the school. We have a consistent record of high achievement and a broad and imaginative curriculum. In our last Ofsted report, October 2007, the school was congratulated on its high standards,  cross-curricular work, care & guidance of children and their personal development. To view the full Oftsed report please click here or to view a detailed breakdown of our 2007 KS2 results click here.   In 2007 the school also received the 'Healthy Schools' Award

There is a huge amount of positive energy at the school coming from the pupils, the teachers, the parents and the whole community.  This is reflected in the vast array of sport, music and development projects that take place every year.  To quote a parent 'a lot of the school's enormous success comes from the sense of community there'. Ofsted (October 2007) stated that Pupils really enjoy their education because the things they do are engaging, relevant and, in their word 'fun'.

Our biggest recent development, was the completion of a new school hall, with a small kitchen, changing rooms and much needed storage space. The Bishop of Swindon officially opened the hall on 28th June 2006. It has made a huge improvement and since July 2006 we have been able to perform the annual Summer Musical Concert on our own site.  Several smaller projects recently completed include: a large part of the old hall was converted into the 7th (much needed!) teaching room; we made a library from a smaller section of the old hall and we built a 2nd playground to provide the children with a more enjoyable and safer playtime environment during the wet months. The adventure playground has recently been re-installed.

We have recently completed the building of a memorial garden / quiet area for those children who like less active playtimes, the complete refurbishment of our pond into an outside nature reserve / classroom (thanks to a grant from the Big Lottery Fund) and the provision of much needed shaded areas for the summer months.  These projects are good examples of the how the whole community contributes to the school with pupils, staff, governors, parents and volunteers all contributing to the progress.  Click here for more information about the outdoor classroom.

There is a huge passion for Arts and Music within the school and this summer KS2 entertained everyone with a  performance of "Cinderella" based on Roald Dahl's alternative poem.  In addition to Arts and Music, our children are lucky to experience a wide variety of sports such as hockey, netball, tag rugby, rounders, tennis etc.

We have many fund raising events during the year, run by our excellent PTA, which keep the school very much in the heart of the community e.g. a spectacular bonfire night, a fun day out at our summer fair, our after school cakes sales etc. Click here to find out more about the PTA. We work very much in partnership with our parents and, as well as our PTA, many parents given their time voluntarily each week to help in classrooms or on school trips.

We have very good links with the local community and strong links with the local church. The vicar and lay readers lead our Worship regularly and we take the children to the village church to celebrate some of the major Christian festivals each year. One of our teachers leads the Sunday Club. The vicar helps with the Religious Education curriculum. Our aim is to provide high quality, enjoyable education for all of our children within a Christian framework. We believe that all children have talents and all achievements are celebrated.

We provide a happy and safe environment and our children enjoy coming to school. We aim to enable all of our children to achieve their potential within the five areas set out in the “Every Child Matters” agenda.

Despite the rural appearance of the village, Ashton Keynes provides few jobs for the villagers and the majority of our parents commute daily to Swindon, Bristol, Cheltenham and London. There are one or two local farms and several parents work in the Gravel extraction industry.

In September 2005, our school population increased by almost one fifth from 140 to 168. Numbers within Ashton Keynes were increasing steadily at that time but a sudden closure of a neighbouring school meant that most of the children transferred to Ashton Keynes. Most of the children who live in the village of Ashton Keynes and the neighbouring small village of “The Leigh” now attend the school. There is also a small group of children from the travelling community who live within the Leigh catchment area. We usually have approximately 20 children from other neighbouring villages whose parents opt to send their children to our school. In September 2008, we started the year with 176 children on roll. Demand for places continues to be high.

All children who live within our catchment area are welcome and encouraged to attend our school. Most do. We serve the local community. No child living in either of the two villages within the catchment area is turned away. When our numbers permit, we welcome children from neighbouring villages also. We have recently increased our Admission limit to 30 from 25 and for the first time in its history, the school has seven classes with one year group in each class. Parental interest and support for the school is very good.

Most of the children from both villages attend the pre-school group held in the Village Hall, though some children also attend one of several nurseries in the locality. All the children visit the school before admission. The Foundation Stage teachers work closely with the Playgroup leader and parents to enable us to have as much information about each child as possible. The head teacher meets all new parents before their children start school. Most of our Year 6 children transfer to Cirencester Secondary Schools in the neighbouring Gloucestershire authority and a few enter the private sector or more recently Pates Grammar School in Cheltenham.

Further information is available from any of the following links:

School Publications  School Governoors   Outdoor Classroom   PTA   School Trustees

or please feel free to Contact Us