Staff
The Senior Leadership Team
| Headteacher | Mr S. Broderick | office@smfr.co.uk |
| Deputy Headteacher | Mr J. Farmer | office@smfr.co.uk |
| Assistant Head - KS2 | Miss B | office@smfr.co.uk |
| Assistant Head - KS1 & EYFS | Miss D. Bachmann | office@smfr.co.uk |
| SENDco | Miss C. Johnson | office@smfr.co.uk |
Non-Teaching Team
| School Bursar | Mrs G. Manley | finance@smfr.co.uk |
| Site Manager | Mr R. White | caretaker@smfr.co.uk |
| Office Administrator | Miss K. Lewis | office@smfr.co.uk |
| Finance Administrator | Mrs A. Griffiths | finance@smfr.co.uk |
Farnham's Magazine Article July 2022
The SMFR Spirit: why St Mary’s Farnham Royal is more than just a school.
St Mary’s Farnham Royal CE School, tucked away in Church Road. The school celebrated its 200th birthday this year, so I chatted to the Head Teacher about what makes the school so special?
“We are a small family-oriented school, classes that only have 25, where everybody knows each other, and everybody cares about each other. And that’s children, staff and parents alike. And it’s a traditional school: this is how I went to school…everybody knew me at school, it was a small, little community place”. The Head is most proud of the journey the school has been on. The vision and the ethos have taken the school from special measures to being an OFSTED “Good” school.
The school is very diverse: there are 13 different nations represented with many different languages and faiths, bringing a real taste of multicultural Britain to our doorstep. “We are still able to maintain a Christian ethos and still be able to be all-inclusive. We are still very much a family-feel school, yet we are so diverse”. The school also has children from many different social groups: 30% are “pupil premium” but many children are from more affluent backgrounds.
Resilience of the children has been something all have been astonished by and very proud of, especially post-pandemic. “The children have bounced back”.
The Head recalls, it was the “toughest challenge for all teachers and schools, going through Covid and keeping everybody safe and happy.”
Many positive changes have come about as a result, for instance, coming in ready changed in PE kit, then the introduction of PE uniform. Report writing and issuing. Changing the way church services are held. This review seems to have taken the pressure off many things by questioning why they have been done a certain way for years.
But the best thing has been improved communication “I think it brought the staff and parents closer together most because we opened up those communications, with a shared experience. We know a lot more parents now, personally…they also understand we are more than just a school…that we are there to support them as a whole”. The Deputy Head, James Farmer, spent much of his time seeing families during the pandemic, directing them to food banks, supporting with donations and ensuring technology was accessible to those that needed it. The Head tells me: We know parents on a more personal level now way more than we ever had done before.”
As told to Liz Glover