Dear Families
We are excited to share with you an important change at Lark Hall for September 2021
We know how important community is, and more so than ever given the recent pandemic. We believe we have a positive impact upon the local community in the way that we support our families. We will always strive to welcome children from all backgrounds, in order to reach high levels of academic performance and become confident, secure and well-rounded individuals. We are also passionate about ensuring health and wider children’s services are integrated with educational provision.
From September 2021 we are changing our name to better reflect the wide range of provision we can offer our families from birth to age 11. Currently, our official school name is Lark Hall Primary School (including Lark Hall Centre for Pupils with Autism). We believe, for many reasons, this does not provide a clear picture of the amazing opportunities at Lark Hall, as the local community school.
Firstly, this does not sufficiently represent the birth – age 11 support we have mentioned above that we are providing to our families. Secondly, with the centre for autism referenced in brackets, very often, families have been confused with regards Lark Hall being either only a specialist provision or only a mainstream provision, or a combination of the two. Thirdly, as you know the school is titled Lark Hall and yet every other connection with this name in this area is called Larkhall; in other words, one word, not two. In our new name, Larkhall will be one word to match the name of the geographical landmarks in the area. Campus also reflects the fact that we provide many different services in one geographical space, hence a campus.
Our new name will be Larkhall Primary Campus.
Larkhall Primary Campus, will be an integral hub of the local community offering support for families from birth to 11:
- Family Centre For Parents of 0 – 5 Years Olds
- Little Larks 2 Year Old Nursery
- Big Larks 3 and 4 Year Old Nursery
- Woodlark Autism Provision (new name for the Centre for Autism)
- Larkhall Mainstream Primary School (for Reception – Year 6)
This support starts with the birth of the child, where from September we will be offering a range of services in the new Family Centre, e.g. Stay and Play sessions for children from birth to under 5. As well as this, we also provide pre-school for families through a Two Year Old Nursery and a Three and Four Year Old Nursery. Finally, we have a primary school from Reception to Year 6, when the child leaves us at the end of their child’s primary education at age 11. The support therefore comes in these four different stages.
Running alongside these four offers is the wonderful Lark Hall Centre for Autism (newly named Woodlark Autism Provision). This provides a specialist provision for children from across Lambeth with a main diagnosis of autism on their Educational Health Care Plan.
These are the reasons why we are very excited about September 2021.
We trust you understand the reasons behind these changes. Of course, as parents, you are such an important part of Lark Hall. We want to get your views on the update of the new school services and new school name. You can do this in two ways; you can either reply using the slip at the bottom of this letter or, you can email using the addresses below:
mpeters@larkhall.lambeth.sch.uk
As a footnote, I would like to inform you that in terms of uniform, if your child’s present uniform will fit in September, there is no need to purchase a new uniform for September. Of course, if you are purchasing a new uniform for September, then you will purchase items with the new logo. More news about this to follow.
In the meantime, many thanks for your continued support for everything we do here at Lark Hall.
Best wishes
Mark Peters Gary Nichol
Chair of Governors Head Teacher