Our Vision, Values and Ethos
Vision Statement
Together we build a community in which EVERYONE is:
- safe, included and respected (We Love)
- inspired, equipped and achieving (We Learn)
- celebrated, confident and thriving (We Laugh)
As a Voluntary Aided Church of England Primary School, we take our Christian foundation and biblical principles seriously. The ethos of the school permeates every aspect of how we care for and educate the children.
Our 3 Ls: Learn, Love, Laugh, underpin who we are, what we do and how we do it. The school is fully inclusive and we welcome everyone regardless of beliefs, backgrounds, faith and world views. The Christian aspects of our school are most overt in collective worship, the structure and content of the RE curriculum, the cycle of school events (such as Harvest, Christmas, Easter and Leavers’ services) but also in how policies are shaped and implemented across the school.
Biblical and theological underpinning - Love
Our school verses are from Colossians Chapter 3, verses 12-14:
12 Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
13 Bear with each other and forgive one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
We help children, parents, staff and governors to understand the virtues in these verses by pairing them into connected qualities. Younger children tend to be able to understand the left hand words, and over time their exposure to and understanding of compassion, humility and forgiveness grows. This growth and progression is a relevant factor in growing in faith and character building/maturity for children and adults.
Love:
kindness → compassion
gentleness → humility
patience → forgiveness
These Values and Virtues are reflected in our cycle of collective worship, relationships and positive behaviour policy and our sanctions/rewards system. Our links with the local Churches and clergy team are an important part of us growing as a Christian community, as is our connection to the national and global Church.
Learning and Laughing
As a primary school with education at its heart we exist to educate the WHOLE child. This includes high quality teaching for progress in core areas such as English, Maths, Science and RE as well as the full scope of a balanced foundation curriculum (Art, PE, Computing, Languages etc). We also believe happy learners make the best learners, so a lot of time, energy and effort goes into creating a welcoming, comfortable, purposeful and relaxed atmosphere for learning, love and laughter. We encourage children’s individuality and are dedicated to helping them to become the best they can be in partnership with families and the wider community.