A primary school in one of the capital’s most deprived areas has been named the best in the country.

Sharing the key to their success, the London-based headteacher says compassion is one of the key reasons for its high standards. Children often start Mayflower Primary School in Poplar, London, already dealing with difficult challenges at home.

Mayflower was named as The Sunday Times’ State Primary School of the Year in 2023 and in 2021 the school was in the top three. This year it has reigned supreme, achieving the best standard assessment test (SATS) results amongst all 1,500 state and independent primary schools surveyed by the Sunday Times.

Dee Bleach has been head teacher of the school since 2008. Recently, she spoke to MyLondon about what the award meant and why she believes the school is so high achieving: “It’s a real honour and it’s a real tribute to our children, and our families and our staff. We feel very proud.”

However, when asked whether it was motivating for teachers to see the school awarded in such a way she told us: “Children have all sorts of challenges. It’s about children being confident and happy, enjoying learning. It’s great if we get them to achieve really well in their SATS but there’s lots of measures for success in our school.”

One of those challenges is poverty. In the Office for National Statistics Census 2021, the area in which the school is located was noted as having more than 60 per cent of households classed as deprived in some form. This may be in education, employment, health or housing. This means that before the children arrive at the school, many of them are facing challenges at home.

Dee said: “The majority of our children, because we are in a borough of high deprivation, [have extra challenges] so the children when they first come to school, they are not speaking very much and yes the progress they make is phenomenal. [But] just when they started in September [and were struggling] and you see them by the spring term and they’re talking to each other and playing happily and you know [they are] content learning, they really are what drives us.”

It is not just in academia that the staff push the pupils with dance one of the key ways the school inspires confidence in the children. Dee explained: “I think all the staff are very caring but also have high expectations. We don’t want them to just be happy, we want them to be learning and gaining in confidence. We have a very rich curriculum because children can be confident academically and then really shy about their movements. By taking dance classes it really helps them to be confident in their body.”

Lessons outside of academia are very important for the school. Dee tells us that the children are constantly out in the city or welcoming visitors at the school and believes this is one of the school’s keys to success. It helps the children to get to know their city really well and gives them a good start to their learning. Dee said: “We show them what the world could be like.” One recent visit was a dancer from the Akram Khan Dance company and there is a museum trip planned in the coming weeks for students.

Aside from education the school works to support the children in their everyday life. They run a free breakfast club and are part of the Felix Project which delivers surplus healthy food to schools in deprived areas. The school has mental health weeks throughout the year and there is a play therapist who visits twice a week. Dee explained that they want to “make sure school is a safe place and that children have trusted adults they can talk to and we can help them deal with what’s going on and support the parents”.

Like all schools, teachers are faced with challenging behaviour but what makes Mayflower Primary School stand out from others is its approach to that behaviour. Dee tells us that she often thinks of the motto “love them most when they deserve it least” when she is dealing with challenging behaviour.

“We don’t know what happened that morning before they went to school. You know, it’s trying to get children to reflect on how they’re feeling and get them to feel a bit more positive. Blanket detentions probably wouldn’t help,” Dee explains.

Mayflower Primary School is evidently excelling at educating its children and achieving amazing results but Dee is fearful for the future. She explained that it is becoming increasingly difficult to balance the budget while offering a really rich curriculum and support for the children.

“Maybe the government will start funding schools properly, that’s why our teachers are on strike because if they do get a pay increase it comes out of our existing budget, the budget doesn’t get any bigger. It’s still a cut to education. I would hope that the government would fund schools so that we have our future Londoners here, working and paying for your retirement. We need an active work force and we need them to be well educated. We need to put funding in education,” Dee said.

Dee’s love for her job is evident and the results she gets speaks volumes about the work she puts in. We asked her what inspired her to go into education: “It sounds a bit corny but it’s a very worthwhile profession and you’re making a difference. It’s great to be around children, they’re so full of hope and joy. Schools are joyful places, especially primary schools.”

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