At Abbey Mead, we believe that the transition of children through phases of their education is vitally important.  As children move from our nursery setting and private nurseries into our Reception stage, we spend time embedding routines and developing character.  It is key time for children to become a part of the Abbey community and for us to learn more about children’s individual needs.  At the start of Reception, children enter the school on a phased timetable so to allow staff and children quality time to get to know one another and to establish routines.

We also consider carefully the transition arrangements between Reception and KS1; and later arrangements for KS1 to KS2.  We recognise as a large school that the physical changes to classrooms, playgrounds and facilities can be daunting so are careful to provide children with opportunities to familiarise themselves with these during the summer term prior to moving to their new year groups.

During the summer term each year, children spend a day moving to their new year group where they meet their teacher and future class mates. This ‘moving on’ day assists greatly in providing children with familiarity and confidence.

Our final transition commitment is to our Year 6 pupils moving to secondary schools.  This is a significant time in our pupils lives as they make the transition to further education.  We work closely with our secondary colleagues to ensure that this move is as smooth as possible; hosting meetings with secondary staff, arranging transition visits and ensuring that all relevant information is provided.  We encourage parents to view secondary schools in the city so to ensure that the school of their choice is the right fit for their child.  Ms Savani further supports with secondary applications. We work closely with parents of pupils with Special Educational Needs; ensuring careful consideration is given to the right secondary setting for their children; assisting with applications to specialist provisions where appropriate.

Hello everyone! My name is Mrs Vyas and I have been working at Abbey for nearly 28 years!

One of my favourite hobbies is dancing, in fact I have coached the Abbey dance group for many years and they have won various awards against other schools at De Montfort Hall and other venues.

I really enjoy teaching the Nursery as I love helping young children develop confidence in their speaking and exploring the outdoors.

An interesting fact about me is that I can speak English, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali and even a little bit of Tamil!

I also love sports and used to play badminton competitively when I was at school. I still enjoy the sport and play with my 3 daughters in my back garden (If it’s not too windy!)

During quarantine I have been baking a lot more, my personal favourite is carrot cake fresh and warm out the oven! (Sounds delicious doesn’t it? ).

I look forward to seeing you all really soon so we can have some fun learning together! (And who knows, maybe I could share my top-secret carrot cake recipe with you all!)

See you soon and remember, stay safe!

Hello Everyone

I’m Miss Healey and I am the EYFS Lead and a reception (F2) teacher here at Abbey Mead. I have been a part of the Abbey team for 19 years and have loved seeing my pupils go on to achieve great things! My favourite subject is Science because it is so exciting to understand why things behave the way they do. One of my favourite things to do is SING! You will definitely hear me singing in our school assemblies, in the classroom and you may even catch me singing to myself walking to the photocopier!

Outside of teaching, I enjoy testing my knowledge of facts, by taking part in quizzes! It’s so much fun to work as a group to find the answers and beat the other teams. My other hobbies include reading, gardening and dancing. Some other facts you might like to know about me are that my favourite colours are blue and red, I love eating cheese and my favourite Roald Dahl book is The Twits.

I am really looking forward to meeting you and starting an exciting year of learning!

Hello everyone, I am Miss Mahomed and I am a Reception teacher at Abbey Mead. This is my first-year teaching and I am extremely excited to begin my journey with you. One of my favourite things to do in my spare time is bake. I enjoy trying new recipes and sharing the delicious food with my friends and family. I hope to incorporate this into our learning so we can make yummy and healthy treats together.

In my classroom, I believe it is very important to build self-confidence and perseverance so you can achieve your best. I love to celebrate all our differences and always aim to be kind and respectful to others. Through an exciting and creative curriculum, you will learn lots of new skills. One of the many reasons I enjoy teaching in Reception, is having the opportunity to explore and being imaginative both indoors and outdoors.

I am really excited to meet you all and can’t wait to spend the year learning and growing with you!

Hi everyone,

I’m Ms Surani and I’m a Year One teacher here at Abbey Mead. I have been part of the Abbey team for 8 years now and have taught in both EYFS and KS1. I am also the Science lead, and you’ll often see me taking my class to the Science Lab for experiments. My other favourite subject is reading and I love books by Julia Donaldson. You may have watched me reading one of her books on the Abbey Storytime Channel. I love teaching outdoors so we’ll be spending lots of time learning in the Spinney.

An interesting fact about me is that I grew up in Kenya and can speak Swahili! I am also a crazy cat lady – I have two Bengals – Kovu and Kenzo, and I have taught them both tricks such as fetch, hug and high five. I also like to travel and explore different places and have been lucky enough to have swam with whale sharks and turtles. I also enjoy baking and my lemon drizzle cake always goes down a treat with my family and friends.

In my classroom, I strongly believe that it is important to be kind and helpful towards others and to always try your best. I love helping children work on their character muscles and go on to achieve great things! I can’t wait to help you become confident learners who are always ready to take on a challenge.

I am really looking forward to meeting you and starting an exciting year of learning!

Hello Year 1!

My name is Miss Ingham and I will be a year 1 teacher at Abbey. I am a new teacher to your school this year so I am really excited to get to know you and for you to teach me everything you know about your school.

One of my favourite things to do is to be outside so I cannot wait to take some of our lessons outside to help us learn even more! Some of my favourite subjects are PE, literacy and Art and I enjoy linking our learning to brilliant stories. Some of my favourite stories that I look forward to sharing with you are Oi Dog, Kitchen Disco and The Stick Man.

I believe that one of the things that will help us to learn best is to make sure we all feel happy and safe in our classroom, so I really look forward to being able to make it a safe and fun space with your help.

We have lots of new and interesting things to learn in year 1 so I cannot wait to be your teacher and learn with you, as I am sure you have lots you can teach me too. I am really looking forward to meeting you all and I hope you are looking forward to being in year 1 as much as I am!

Hi, I’m Miss Cogan.  I teach in Year 2 and I look after all the children and teachers in Years 1 and 2 as their Learning Manager. I have been at Abbey for five years now but have been teaching for over 15 years and have worked in two other schools in Leicester and in a place called Syston. I have taught in all year groups but I think I like working in KS1 the best! My favourite thing about teaching is getting to know my class and being able to help you all learn new things. Its amazing to see how much you change and learn over the year. My favourite subject is English and I love teaching this. I love helping my class create lots of amazing pieces of writing for others to enjoy after we have read and explored a new text together. I also love helping children learn to read as I think it is really important skill and will help you in all other areas of your learning.  When I am not at school, I love to do yoga to help me relax and keep fit. Recently, I learnt how to teach yoga to children and so you will often find me and my class on our yoga mats, improving our mental health and physical wellbeing! When I get home from school, I enjoy spending time with my son, he’s called Brodie and he is 7 years old. We live with our two cats-Olive and Alice. Olive is very fat because she eats all of Alice’s food and so we are trying at the moment to get her to exercise more.

I can’t wait to see you all next term and get to know you all. We are going to have a fantastic time.

Hello everybody, I am Miss Patel and I am a Year 2 teacher at Abbey. This will be my second-year teaching at Abbey and I have taught in Year 4 previously for a short while. Before I began working at Abbey, I was a supply teacher, which means I had to go and teach in lots of different schools and work with different year groups all the time. I began my journey here at Abbey as a supply teacher in Year 4 and I fell in love with the school which is why I just had to stay here. I spent the last year working in Year 2 and I have to say I have enjoyed it so much that I will be continuing my journey in Year 2 again! How exciting!  Some of my favourite things to do is read, go for walks, help people, spend time with my family and recently I have been exploring my cooking skills.  When you get to know me, you will learn that Harry Potter is one of my favourite series ever. I have even visited the studios in London where I saw the Harry Potter film sets and props. I loved it, it was extremely magical and I felt like I was actually in Hogwarts!

From a young age, I have always had a passion for art and creativity which you will get to see when you join me next year. I love making things look colourful and exciting! In my classroom, I believe that it is extremely important to be calm, kind, helpful and happy so that you can become resilient learners. However, the most important thing- and you will see when you come to my class- is to have FUN, laugh and develop a love for learning! Don’t worry there will be plenty of opportunities in my class for us to get busy, have fun and learn at the same time. You are going to learn so many exciting things next year and I know you will enjoy it just as much as I will enjoy teaching them to you!

I am super excited to meet you all really soon and I know that we will have the most amazing year together!

Hi everyone

My name is Mrs Sidyot and I have been teaching at Abbey for 8 years now. I was very fortunate that my first placement on my teacher training course was at Abbey. This is when I fell in love with the school and the children and knew I had to come back! I have taught for many years in Key Stage 1 (both year 1 and year 2) and I’m now expanding my teaching practise to Key Stage 2. I thoroughly enjoy teaching art and design and like to get messy with paints and colours. I have a great passion for maths and love planning and teaching this subject even though occasionally, at school I struggled myself. I like to ensure that my children are always having fun in my class so I do zumba during lessons to help break up our sessions. This also give us a little exercise which is another bonus.

Over the last couple of years, I have been very lucky and have travelled to many different countries with my husband. I thoroughly enjoy doing this as I am intrigued to experience different cultures and lifestyles as there is so much out there for us to see. My favourite colour is yellow and I believe this reflects my personality as I am quite enthusiastic. I love summer and feel the sun always makes me feel happy. My favourite animal is a dolphin. I was very lucky to finally meet some in Singapore and play with one. I have a little nephew in my life who I ADORE. He’s 6 years old and is my little best friend. You will definitely hear lots more about him! I am also expecting to have another little nephew or niece very very soon which is super exciting!

I can’t wait to see you all in the new academic year. I can assure you that you will have a great year with me as I will do my utmost best when teaching you.

Hi! I am Mrs Alam and I will be teaching year 4 here at Abbey Mead. I have been teaching for thirteen years and was lucky enough to join the fantastic Abbey team five years ago. As a phase leader, I oversee both year groups 3 and 4, and I am thrilled to help facilitate your learning as you progress through the school.  I have a profound love for English. Writing is a strong passion of mine and I often write a lot of poetry in my free time. I am a mum of two boys; one is 14 years old and the other will be turning 1 in October. I have a gorgeous, grey pet cat called Mooshi, so between my pet and my kids, I am a very busy lady at home too! I love to swim, in fact, I snorkelled in the Red Sea, alongside a moray and many other fish! It was the most amazing experience of my life. I love travelling and have visited a few places around the world. I’ve been to Bangladesh (which is where my parents are from), Egypt, Paris, South of Spain and Croatia. Of all the places I’ve visited, I would have to say that my favourite place was a city in Spain called Barcelona because of the amazing artistic buildings that were designed by an architect called Gaudi but they also have a very famous football stadium called Camp Nou and a famous football team called Barcelona FC.

I hope you are all looking forward to an exciting year ahead with me as your teacher. I want you to all become confident learners who are not afraid of a challenge and more than anything- I want you to be happy. Make sure you read lots of books over the summer and I look forward to seeing you in Year 4!

Hi, I’m Miss Resch and I am a Year 4 teacher here at Abbey. I have been teaching for 3 years and have spent my time teaching in Years 4 and 5. I really enjoy teaching Year 4 and seeing the children in my class grow in confidence as well as develop their skills throughout the year. One of my favourite subjects to teach is Computing and I am the head of Computing at Abbey. I also enjoy teaching Maths as it has been one of my favourite subjects since I was your age. I find Computing and Maths fascinating as they both involve problem solving. One of my favourite things to do is bake. If you ask the staff around the school, they will tell you that my brownies always go down a treat! Alongside baking, I also enjoy music and actually play the piano, which I started learning at age 9 whilst I was in Year 4! I have always loved reading and one of my favourite book series is Harry Potter as I enjoy escaping into the world of magic and adventure. You will notice that our reading corner has a Harry Potter theme. Some other facts about me are that I have a twin brother and my favourite colour is teal. I also love animals, particularly ducks and I have a crazy dog called Chara who you will hear lots about throughout the year.

I am so excited to meet you and get to know you all. I am sure that we will have a wonderful, fun packed year together!

Hi, I’m Miss Saujani. I am an assistant principal and Year 5 teacher at Abbey Mead Primary Academy. I have been at Abbey for 12 years now and have taught and led year groups in both KS1 and KS2. From the time I started at Abbey, I have enjoyed being a part of the amazing team of teachers and been very lucky to have taught such wonderful children.

I absolutely love watching football and I am a massive fan of Leicester City Football Club. I have a season ticket, which means that I go to the King Power Stadium to watch my favourite team play all their home games. I also like to travel and explore different places (by walking a lot and having a map in my hand!), although I hate having to go on aeroplanes! One of the countries I have enjoyed visiting is Sri Lanka, where I was able to go to an elephant orphanage and feed baby elephants!  Another of my hobbies is to do quizzes with my friends and I especially love it when we work as group to work out the answers and beat the other teams.

I’m looking forward to seeing you all and I’m sure that we are going to have a great year together.

My name is Mrs Chauhan and I am going to be your new teacher in Year 6. Most of you will already know me and will have seen me around the school from when you first started at Abbey as I have been teaching here for nearly 20 years. Yes, that long! Can you believe it? When I was training to become a teacher, I began my first placement at Abbey and was extremely lucky to be offered a job when I qualified. From the moment I walked in to Abbey, I fell in love with the school and have spent some amazing years teaching wonderful children.

I first began teaching in Key Stage 1, in Year 2, and after a few years decided to move to Key Stage 2. I have spent many memorable years teaching in years 4, 5 and 6 but If I’m completely honest, my favourite year group to teach is Year 6! I thoroughly enjoy teaching and preparing children for their SATs; I find it an extremely rewarding process successfully taking children through the final leg of their journey at Abbey. I’m guessing most of you think that Year 6 is only about SATs; although it most certainly is a very important part, you might not believe it but we do actually plan a lot of fun lessons and trips. After all your hard work at the end of SATs, you will be delighted to know that the teachers organise lots fun things to do!

Now let me tell you a little bit about myself! I love the sunshine so travelling abroad to hot countries, experiencing different cultures is something I thoroughly enjoy. Also, since lockdown, I have discovered that I am actually quite good at baking! I also look forward to socialising and spending time with friends.

I am really looking forward to meeting you and am certain we will all have a wonderful year together.

Hi everyone. For those of you in year 5 coming up to year 6, I’m sure you would have seen me around by now! I am going into my third year at Abbey Mead now; however, I have been teaching for almost 6 years now! Time really flies when you enjoy your job. Of all the year groups I have ever taught in (Year 2,3 and 4), year 6 is definitely my favourite. I am so lucky that I get to work with Mrs Thandi and Mrs Chauhan and I especially love how much we get to help children reach their full potential before they take their SATs. My favourite subject (and still is) when I was in school was English. I enjoy understanding how and why authors have carefully chosen specific language and punctuation. My favourite book series is The Hunger Games- I love stories that highlight strong female characters.  I absolutely love being creative and planning interesting lessons for the children in year 6. I particularly enjoy making my classroom look nice, this year I am thinking of using more natural and muted colours- watch this space!! Over the past two years, I have been learning how to do calligraphy; it helps relax me and I enjoy writing in a fancy way. I am really looking forward to the new school year and meeting my new class, we have plenty of fun things planned. I encourage you to truly be yourself in my classroom, when you are relaxed and yourself, you will always learn more.

Hi, I am Mr Caldwell.  I am the PE Teacher here at Abbey Mead.  This will be my second full year at Abbey and I teach PE to every year group from Foundation all the way up to Year 6.  I really enjoy helping children develop new skills and discovering lots of new sports and activities.  One of my favourite activities to teach is gymnastics because students always amaze me with how creative they are when balancing, rolling and jumping.  I support the best team in the world (Leicester City Football Club) and travel up and down the country supporting them.  I love watching all sports but I particularly enjoy watching cricket, football, handball and tennis.  I also play lots of sport in my spare time.  I play football twice a week, badminton as much as I can and when the weather is nice I like to play lots of tennis.  When I am not teaching PE I am usually in my PE office.  If you have any questions about sports or PE then please come and ask and I will be happy to help.

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone again and meeting the new foundation children.  I am certain that we will have a wonderful year full of fun PE lessons, sports competitions and amazing lunchtime activities!