Life in our Church School
Christian values and beliefs permeate everyday life and underpin the life of our school. This includes having God at the centre of many aspects of our daily practice, including the classroom/school environment, collective worship, relationships with pupils as well as in our daily lessons. As a Christian school, our Religious Education enhances these values and promotes deeper understanding. Our Christian character aims to' nourish those of faith, encourage those of other faiths and to challenge those of no faith,’ (Archbishop Runcie).
Although we are a Christian school, we respect all children’s and parents' values and beliefs. We welcome families of different faiths and cultures to our school.
St Andrew’s church
We have strong links with our parish church, St Andrew's, which is located just a few moments away along Oakshade road. Each week, a team from the church perform an ‘Open the Book’ assembly which the children participate in.
This interactive presentation is always a highlight of the children's week, and they particularly enjoy it when the puppets come to visit! The focus is on sharing stories from the Bible and discussing their relevance to our own lives and lessons we can learn from them.
You can visit the St Andrew's website to find out about this vibrant church and its brilliant work in the community by clicking here. The Reverend at St Andrew's, Frances Trickey, is also a governor at our school. Reverend Patrick Davies is currently a Curate at the church and is our link governor for Christian Distinctiveness and Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development.
Throughout the year our children visit and present various church services at St Andrew’s including at Harvest time, Christmas and Easter. Further enrichment takes place in the form of 'reflection days' at the festivals of Christmas and Easter.
Our School Virtues and Values
At our school, great emphasis is laid upon our welcoming Christian ethos, founded on the teachings of Jesus. We embrace the spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, moral and social developments of the children at our school and believe that these are underpinned through the promotion of four core Virtues which guide our vision for education and provision: Wisdom, Hope, Dignity and Community.
We reflect upon and explore one Virtue each term and ‘Community’ (which incorporates the idea of ‘living well together’), permeates the whole school year. We take a different Value each half term and link this to our work on the termly Virtue.