Priory Common is part of the Inclusive Learning Federation which is an unusual federation of schools bringing together Romans Field, a special school for children aged 5-11 with SEMH and complex needs, Bradwell Village, a mainstream junior school for children aged 7-11 and Priory Common, a mainstream infant school for children aged 4-7. Priory Common is a feeder school to Bradwell Village and are located in the Bradwell Village area. Romans Field is approximately 4 miles from the other two schools and located in Bletchley.

Initially, the federation was created in 2016 as a federation between Romans Field and Bradwell Village and was named the Roman Village Federation. Priory Common joined the federation in 2017 when the name was changed to the Inclusive Learning Federation to reflect its inclusive nature.

There is one governing board for the federation and governors represent the 3 schools. As a federation, each school has retained its own budget although there are cost savings due to economies of scale and the shared purchasing of services.

Both staff and the children benefit from the schools working together. Children from Romans Field have accessed enrichment and extra-curricular activities at Bradwell Village School. In 2020, a pupil at Romans Field accessed his maths lessons at Bradwell Village to enable him to experience mainstream provision as our aim for him was to return to a mainstream school. Pupils from Bradwell Village and Priory Common have had access to Romans Field’s counsellor and the outreach team who have delivered interventions to individual and groups of children.

Through joint training days, staff have developed their knowledge and understanding of the requirements at each key stage and Priory Common has supported Romans Field in the development of their writing provision. Bradwell Village and Romans Field have also worked on the introduction of Target Tracker and PiXL. Staff from Romans Field and Priory Common are currently supporting Bradwell Village by providing SENCO time. A number of staff have also moved from one school in the federation to another to provide career opportunities for them. There is a shared Business Manager for Bradwell Village and Priory Common and she works closely with the Business Manager for Romans Field.

During the last few years, we have worked on developing federation-wide policies where it is practical to do so and sharing our curriculum policies to ensure they are as effective as possible. We also share our practices and have an over-arching business development strategy, from which the individual school improvement plans are generated.

Although we don’t always do things the same, our philosophy across the federation is ‘building success together – meeting the challenges of change’.