Suffolk &amp; Cambs

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Say hello to Claire Jackson – <a href="https://www.ipswich.school/prep/">Ipswich Prep School’s</a> new head who slipped into the hot seat in September 2022, taking over from Amanda Childs. Previously Headteacher at St Mark’s Catholic Primary School in Ipswich, Claire is an East Anglian girl through and through, and she’s delighted to have taken the reins of this impressive prep school (ages 0 &#8211; 11), part of the all-through co-ed Ipswich School. She has a kind and calm exterior, but is impressive and ambitious with strong beliefs that children need to feel happy and confident in order to achieve their full potential.



We hotfooted it down to Ipswich to get the inside line on what the future looks like for this leading Prep School with Claire at the helm&#8230;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="760" height="460" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/07/Ipswich-prep-school-1.jpg" alt="Ipswich prep" class="wp-image-17191" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/07/Ipswich-prep-school-1.jpg 760w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/07/Ipswich-prep-school-1-300x182.jpg 300w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/07/Ipswich-prep-school-1-720x436.jpg 720w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/07/Ipswich-prep-school-1-150x91.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px" /></figure>



Welcome to Ipswich Prep! Tell us a bit about yourself…



I was a head teacher at a Catholic primary school in Ipswich and then previous to that I was assistant head at New Hall. I&#8217;m local, just having moved from Chelmsford and Colchester to Ipswich. I&#8217;m already fully invested into the community here and it&#8217;s a lovely place. 



How did the move to Ipswich Prep come about?



I was looking for an all through school, as I&#8217;ve worked at all through schools before and see the value in being part of the journey &#8211; it&#8217;s wonderful seeing babies as young as 3 months develop into adults and being part of facilitating and influencing that. It&#8217;s my job to make sure that whatever a child&#8217;s passion and potential is, it&#8217;s realised here. 



You&#8217;re one term in&#8230; how&#8217;s it going? 



My own core values really align with the school&#8217;s core values (care, passion, potential and communication) and so, after just one term, I already feel at home here. At this school it&#8217;s all about the child developing a really strong moral compass and these values are lived and breathed by all here not just from the top down. I&#8217;m the happiest I&#8217;ve ever been in a job and I think I&#8217;m so happy because of the welcome I&#8217;ve had from the school &#8211; from the children, the parents and the staff. 



What are your plans for the school? How will you make your mark?



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1500" height="1000" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2022/08/Ipswich-Prep-Art-7.jpg" alt="children in art class" class="wp-image-27572" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2022/08/Ipswich-Prep-Art-7.jpg 1500w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2022/08/Ipswich-Prep-Art-7-800x533.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2022/08/Ipswich-Prep-Art-7-1000x667.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2022/08/Ipswich-Prep-Art-7-400x267.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/suffolkcambs/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2022/08/Ipswich-Prep-Art-7-788x525.jpg 788w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" /></figure>



At the moment I&#8217;m just taking stock, but the most important thing for me is ensuring the curriculum evolves and is constantly innovated. This means the children have the opportunity to not only be academically challenged, but also have the intellectual skills and creative mindset to be problem solvers, so they&#8217;re ready for technologies and future jobs that don&#8217;t even exist yet. To do that they need to know how to learn. Curriculum has to be at the heart of any good school. It&#8217;s also about maintaining that broad curriculum right from a young age, so there&#8217;s no narrowing down of their experiences. 



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I also want to maintain the breadth of our co-curricular offering. I&#8217;m doing this by asking the children what they want to do to make sure their passion is recognised and help them to be inquisitive and curious. If they want to experience Judo, engineering or astronomy, say &#8211; let&#8217;s put it on for them. It&#8217;s also so good for the parents to have all these clubs during the school week as it means they don&#8217;t have to be a taxi service at the weekend. They can then relax at the weekend and spend that time as family time. 



Global citizenship is also something I&#8217;m really keen to develop further &#8211; that the children are ecologically aware, work with local and national charities, learn to love themselves and love the planet. Love features in a lot of what I talk about &#8211; encouraging a love of learning, a love of teaching, a love of each other&#8230; 



What do you think makes Ipswich Prep stand out? 



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It&#8217;s the happiness. This is truly a happy school &#8211; happy children will learn and happy teachers will teach. If you look after the person they are going to be amazing professionals and they are here. They&#8217;re a really happy, committed and dedicated staff who keep the children at the centre of all they do. 



I&#8217;ve been getting to know the staff individually to find out what gets them out of bed every morning so I can continue to support them to be free to teach and feel able to take risks in their teaching plans as that allows the children to take risks too. We have such loyal, yet dynamic teachers here and that&#8217;s what makes the school so special. 



Another thing we do really well is the pastoral and holistic care of the children. Because we&#8217;ve got that right there isn&#8217;t space for intolerance, inequality, or lack of respect and as a result we&#8217;ve got a real multicultural mix in the school and every child is made to feel special and unique.



Tell us something about yourself that your staff and pupils might not know.



I always say to our pupils that I would not ask them to do anything I would not be prepared to do myself.&nbsp; Knowing I am uncomfortable with heights, whilst away on PLG, Year 6 challenged me to the high ropes, Giant Swing and Jacob&#8217;s ladder.&nbsp; Admittedly I did scream just a little as the giant swing was released, which the cherubs recorded and played back to the whole school…&nbsp; Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway!



If you could join one of the co-curricular clubs at Ipswich Prep, which one would it be?&nbsp;&nbsp;



My goodness there are so many to choose from so that is a difficult question to answer… Probably skiing because it is a skill I am yet to master, and involves the ski lift at heights!



You&#8217;ve spoken about the importance of reading and books for Prep pupils. Are there any books that shaped your childhood? 



I take a glance here at the bookshelf in my office to some of the books I still have from my childhood and I am drawn to the Chronicles of Narnia; a book inscribed by my grandparents and read to me by my Grandpa whilst I cuddled into his lap.&nbsp;He was an amazing Irish storyteller who used inventive language, nonsense, and poking fun at logic to stimulate my young fantastical imagination.&nbsp;&nbsp;



What do you do to relax outside school?&nbsp;



I am a big parkrun fan. I try to run every Saturday morning, and my maddest moment was the parkrun at Land’s End on the day of the storm last year.&nbsp; There were only twenty three runners; I had to walk around the tip of the headland as I was blown off my feet but, for the one and only time, I was first in my age group!&nbsp;



Where are you favourite places to go in Ipswich?



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I am most at home outside, preferably by the sea or the river, with the sun on my face and the wind on my back, so since moving to Ipswich I have discovered the walks along the beach of old Felixstowe, the Deben river walk from Melton to Woodbridge, and the Orwell to Pin Mill with my dog Parker, usually with a coffee stop along the way or a spot of lunch at the end.



Want to know more? <a href="https://suffolkcambs.muddystilettos.co.uk/kids/ipswich-prep-school-review/">Read our full review of Ipswich Prep School here.</a>

Meet the head: Ipswich Prep School

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