Welcome

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (IKB) Primary School is part of the new Blackdown Education Partnership, within Somerset. IKB welcomed its first cohort of children into the superb EYFS setting in September 2020. The school serves the community in Longforth Farm and its immediate environs.

IKB is named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who has a strong connection with Wellington and was the main architect and engineer of the Great Western Railway and the Clifton Suspension Bridge as well as many revolutionary inventions in the 1800s. It is his pioneering and innovative approach that has inspired the school as well as his connections with Wellington itself as he designed and built many of the buildings in Wellington.

The Blackdown Education Partnership is a new Trust, as of 1 September 2023, and is founded on the principles of giving every child in our local community the very highest quality education, to see themselves as successful, to participate in enrichment and learning and to be full citizens locally, national and globally. IKB live and breathe the Partnership’s commitment that Every Child Achieves, Every Child Belongs, Every Child Participates in learning, enrichment and the community.

The Blackdown Education Partnership is committed to the principle that every child will feel a sense of belonging and that they are important and contribute in their own unique way, as well as collectively building a positive, enthusiastic and supportive community that is based on mutual respect and support. There is assumed success throughout Blackdown Education Partnership

Our IKB Mission Statement:

"IKB's aim is to provide exceptional education for its pupils and to work closely with its families to identify needs as early as possible. By engaging families at an early stage in their child's school life we can focus on the child's educational and developmental requirements quickly to ensure the best educational journey for each individual. We are committed to the locality, to building the best provision possible for every child through from nursery to secondary, in both academic and social, emotional and health education."

The IKB pastoral system, inclusive of Houses, provides a strong family-orientated support for pupils and families and is a key feature of IKB. The Houses reflect the innovation and inventiveness of Brunel, and are named after great scientists, mathematicians, environmentalists and inventors, especially female and from ethnically diverse groups, inclusive of people living/ who lived with disabilities, to reinforce the positive growth mindset that will characterise learning in the school.  

IKB Houses: 

Thunberg (Greta) – a teenage activist from Sweden who has become the face of the youth climate movement. 

Johnson (Katherine) - a mathematician from America whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first spaceflights and moon landings.

Hawking (Stephen) - a theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author from England who was known for his work on black holes relativity. 

Simmonds (Ellie) - a British, gold medal winning and world record setting, Paralympian swimmer who is also involved in the Scout movement and sporting charities.

At IKB, we centre ourselves firmly in the heart of local community and support the community by ensuring pupils have a clear sense of what makes a good citizen and a good neighbour, the responsibilities and the privilege of living in the UK. Pupils have a strong sense of themselves in the local, national and global context so that they have a clear sense of the responsibility they have to others, in the present and in the future.