Headteacher Welcome

Welcome to Stocks Green Primary School.  We are a school which prides itself on being an important part of the wonderful local community of Hildenborough.  The theme of community permeates through our school as we aim to support pupils to be successful members of the global community and go on to make a positive impact on the world. 

At Stocks Green we pride ourselves on being an inclusive school which supports all pupils to be successful through having high expectations for all but providing high levels of skilled support to achieve it.  We welcome all pupils and their parents into our school family and actively seek to find opportunities to bring families into the school to engage with the pupils, their learning and local community projects.

Stocks Green Primary School is a school which recognises the importance of inspiring and supporting every child to be the best that they can be.  We believe that this is achieved through providing the children with real life learning experiences and offering the children a curriculum that equips them with the fundamental knowledge and skills that will support them to be successful in secondary school and into their future careers.  We plan for learning opportunities beyond the National Curriculum and give careful consideration to the unique situation that children growing up in Hildenborough find themselves in.  This involves considering the opportunities and experiences we need to provide pupils in order them to be successful in the future. 

As a school we recognise the importance of children having opportunities to apply their developing knowledge and skills in a range of different ways.  As such, we provide lots of real world opportunities for musical and sporting performances, drama and exploring coding skills through robotics.  We feel that this allows pupils to utilise their knowledge in new and exciting way and provides the platform for them to confidently use these skills again in the future.

We aim for Stocks Green to be a warm and welcoming school environment with pupils, families and staff all enjoying attending the site every day and developing happy memories of their time as part of our Stocks Green family.

Our wonderful team and community of learners hope to welcome you to the school soon for a visit and to join our Stocks Green family.

 

Kind regards,

Mr P Hipkiss - Headteacher

Our school opened on 7th January 1969 with 112 pupils in 4 classes.

The school badge comes from the coat of arms of the ‘Fane’ or ‘Vane’ family, which has three golden gauntlets on a blue shield. The family moved from Monmouth in Wales to Hildenborough in 1426 and lived in the original Hilden Manor – which was on the land opposite the present Hilden Manor. The *manor of Hilden or ‘Hyldenn’ as it was spelt in those days, dates back to at least 1240.

The present Hilden Manor was built beside the ruins of the original fortified manor between the 14th and 15th centuries, on the road which has been an important route from London to Rye and Hastings since the 10th-12th centuries, when they were the two main ports

A ‘manor’ in those days also meant an area of land. So the village was the ‘manor of Hylldenn.’ A historian wrote, "Hilden is a manor situated at about a mile's distance from Tunbridge town, and was anciently part of the possessions of the family of Vane, before the reign of Edward III.”

In 1624, Francis Vane became the first Earl of Westmorland. The land the school was built on originally belonged to Francis Vane.

So, the Earl at the time the school was built in 1969 - David Anthony Thomas Fane, 15th Earl of Westmorland (Born 31st March 1924 – died 8th September 1993) was asked for permission to use one of the gauntlets from the Vane coat of arms for the school badge.

 

Manor – a unit of land, often belonging to a peer of the realm (such as an Earl , Baron or Lord), consisting of a manor house , surrounding land and lands rented to tenants.

Lowy - The name 'Lowy' derives from a French word meaning 'league', a unit of distance roughly equivalent to two miles. A Lowy therefore would include all land within this distance of a castle.