Posted on 26 February 2025
How Hyde Foundation is supporting Rochester Riverside Church of England Primary School and its pupils
Hyde partly funded the building of the Rochester Riverside Church of England Primary School, as part of the planning agreement for our Rochester Riverside development, which is delivering around 1,400 new homes on a 50-acre brownfield site.
The school is run by the Pilgrim Multi-Academy Trust and was opened in September 2023 (the final school buildings were completed in November 2023). The oldest pupils in the school are currently in Year 4.
Hyde’s Partnership and Project Manager, Maddassar ‘Mads’ Arif, had arranged a catch up with Jan Taylor, CEO of the Trust. This was an opportunity to find out more about how the school is making an incredible difference to the pupils and local community, and what further support we could provide.
Jan proudly showed us around the vibrant, airy building. The school boasts everything from up-to-date technology – whether it’s in their hall, interactive white boards, or in their ICT suites - to a dedicated sensory room and sanctuary called The Cove.
It also has an all day nursery (where even lunch is paid for) – which encourages parents back into work, who otherwise may not have been able to do so. The nursery includes a large outdoor play area for the children, some of who may not have outside space at home.
Outside space is a real feature of the school – Jan proudly showed the Roman Wall running through the school and the undercroft providing shelter on rainy and hot days. There are also natural grass fields and sports courts for children to play on and enjoy outdoor learning.
The school also has a designated forest school area, which enables pupils to appreciate nature, whether it’s making swings on trees, or toasting marshmallows around a camp fire they’ve made. Mads suggested that the school could use Hyde’s Match My Project platform (a virtual meeting point where community organisations and groups can ask for help for their projects from our supply chain partners), to support the forest school in future, which Jan thought would be a brilliant idea.
Emphasis on pastoral care
Jan explained that the Trust includes four primary schools and Rochester Riverside school covers some of the areas with the worst deprivation.
The Hyde Foundation is continuing to support the school by funding a dedicated member of staff to help pupils and their families from deprived backgrounds. Donna Foley is the school’s Pastoral Care Manager, and is making a huge difference to the school.
Jan explained: “Donna has made such an impact on the school. There are many challenges in bringing a new community of families together in opening a new school. Donna can signpost parents and carers to extra support and her work has made a big impact on increasing attendance for many children who were struggling to come to school.
“She’s on the gate every morning, so is available, visible and simply a friendly face for parents to meet on a daily basis. Parents feel they can confide in her if there are any issues.”
To boost attendance, Donna has supported breakfast clubs in school, which encourage children to arrive at school early, so they are there for registration. After identifying a need, she has set up a food pantry for parents to access if and when they need to. She has also set up a uniform store for children to ‘help themselves’ to, if they feel unable to come to school as they don’t have clean or correct uniform.
Mads was keen to continue to support this and suggested that the school applies for more funding through Match My Project.
Jan also explained that Donna’s efforts to get children into school on time is important to ensure they don’t miss vital learning and avoid falling behind. For example, if their phonics lessons were first thing in the morning – children who are regularly late for school, miss it. In the interim, Donna suggested swapping the lesson to the afternoon –so the lesson isn’t missed if a child is late to school. While such a simple suggestion this change has made a real difference to children’s learning.
As Jan summed up: “If you get the pastoral and social side right, then children learn. Having Donna has been transformational for the school.”
Support from Hyde Foundation
Mads also suggested other funding that could help the school. For example, Hyde’s Communities Fund could pay for sports kit for the children, so that they can take part in tournaments with other schools. Jan was delighted with this idea – particularly as Year 4 had an upcoming netball tournament and new kit would give the children a real confidence boost and sense of identity.
As we left the school, Mads asked Jan to let him know if there was anything else that Hyde could support with. Jan emphasised again the importance of outside space, and Mads said that she should put any requests onto Match My Project, as partners would be more than happy to come down with paint and paintbrushes to help out with anything the school needed.
Thank you Rochester Riverside Primary School – it was great to see first-hand the difference your school is making to children and the local community.