How Britain's best primary school is using Shakespeare to tackle UK reading crisis

Shakespeare, Milton, Blake and Dickens sit together on a shelf labelled ‘Year 6’.

In the English classroom at Thomas Jones Primary, several surreal things are happening at once. Shakespeare, Milton, Blake and Dickens sit together on a shelf labelled ‘Year 6’. Children raise their hands to answer questions before they have been asked. Although they look like ten-year-olds, they use words like “magnanimous” and “antithesis”, and phrases such as “it was his destiny to perish.”

Then there is the view from the window. Beyond the classroom, a tower block is shrinking, month by month and floor by floor: Grenfell Tower. The top of the tower, though, remains constant, wrapped in a banner bearing a large green heart and four words: Forever in our Hearts.

Thomas Jones Primary, a five-minute walk from Grenfell tower in West London which is currently being dismantled, is so successful that it tips into the surreal in almost every register. Under the 25-year leadership of its headteacher, David Sellens, and the even longer reign of its deputy, Lindsey Johnson, the state-funded community school has collected almost every accolade available.

It was the first primary school in the UK to be awarded World Class school status, has been repeatedly cited as an Ofsted exemplar, and in 2025 topped the Sunday Times Parent Power League table, earning the titles of Best Primary School in the UK and Primary School of the Year in London.

“There’s a wonderful line,” Sellens tells The Mirror, when this catalogue of achievement is read back to him. “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

The Public Enemy reference is telling. Thomas Jones is a serious place with plenty of room for the unserious, and a school where titles belong to the community but never license complacency.

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Emily Driver is a freelance journalist with Reach PLC. Her interests include news/current affairs, culture, business and lifestyle. She has worked with the Mirror’s Showbiz desk as a reporter and now works closely with the U35 team.