Staff and pupils at a Purton primary school have won recognition for spreading happiness in their community.

Ridgeway Farm CE Academy has earned Whole School Happiness accreditation for doing things like writing letters to people in care homes and starting a kindness club.

Laura Gibbard said: “As head of school, I have always known what an amazing group of children, parents and staff we have at Ridgeway.

“It really is a happy place to be, as cheesy as that may sound, and it is so nice to formally have that recognition through our accreditation.”

In September last year the school started working towards the accreditation which was created by Shonette Bason-Wood and her company Spread the Happiness.

Each class had to provide evidence of seven weeks’ worth of happiness challenges, ranging from writing letters to care homes and choosing a class anthem, to having a happiness celebration in school.

Reception teacher Danii Smiles told the Adver: “Essentially, we knew that we were a happy school and our focus since we opened five years ago was to have an ethos which centred around well-being and family.

“And so once we knew about this accreditation, we knew it was something we wanted to get to prove what we already knew about our school.

“As a school we had a twilight training session in September about the accreditation and started the journey there.

“I put the school in a competition to win the training in the first place. I have personally attended many training sessions with Shonette Bason-Wood and loved it all so when I heard about her training the whole school – I was keen for us to win!

“Once we received the training, I led the school, with the support of all staff to collect the evidence, train up any staff that were unable to attend the training, took on a kindness club after school where we continued the great work during the day and kept everyone motivated.

“The evidence was a lot of paperwork and staff were so on board, I cannot thank them enough!

“We were told it was one of their best moderated evidence packages they had received”

The school is planning to celebrate with a flash mob dance and a video which will be coming soon.