Our school is blessed and privileged to have superb links with and the support of our local church – St Chad’s Church, Patchway.  You can also find out what the church has been up to via their Facebook page www.facebook.com/StChadsPatchway/

Values and Ethos

A warm welcome to St Chad’s Primary School. Every person that attends St Chad’s and those that work to support them are proud to be part of our vibrant and exciting school. St Chad’s is a welcoming and happy place to learn and grow.

We want our children to develop kindness, curiosity and a drive to improve the circumstances of others. We value the achievements of all that attend and like to think forward to the future achievements of our pupils. We trust they will make a real contribution in so many areas of life.

We believe we are preparing children for their future lives through aspiring to the highest standards whilst ensuring a wide range of enriching experiences, all of which are underpinned by our vision and values.

Our Christian Ethos and information about Religious Education

Themes of Collective Worship throughout St Chads Year 2023-24

Vision

“Learning to love, loving to learn.”

Our vision underpins all that we do in St Chad’s.
We want every child to feel this and to be a part of making this happen in school and in their day to day lives.

On the day the school community reviewed and developed the vision and values, the group made of staff, parents, governors and members of the church, agreed that spirituality can be defined as:

1. understanding self,
2. understanding others,
3. understanding beauty,
4. asking big questions.

This was part of the journey of arriving at our Vision. Below explains how we strive to bring to life this vision.

Ethos and Aims

What does this look like?
In working towards our vision we build on our Christian foundations to provide a secure and stimulating environment, a place of joy where children are nurtured and take on responsibility to learn and strive to continually achieve, where all stakeholders have pride in our school and where each person is valued as an individual.

Learning to love each other… all learners are inclusive, show friendship, forgiveness, compassion and peace to each other to reflect our distinctive Christian character.

Learning to love ourselves…by developing spiritual, moral, cultural, personal, social, mental health and physical development.

Learning to love God…by promoting fellowship through reverence, thankfulness, praise, trust, hope and creation.

Loving to learn to be the best that we can be…with the highest expectation for every pupil, all learners at St Chad’s are stretched in all aspects of their academic, social, spiritual and emotional learning.

Loving to learn in new ways… developing creative, imaginative, inventive pupils through celebrating their unique and individual strengths as well as exploring new strengths they may not know they have yet.

Loving to learn… through a thirst for life-long learning pupils develop reflectiveness, resourcefulness, resilience and reciprocity.

Loving to learn about the world we live in…through and experiences of the arts, culture and technological developments to create a love and respect for everything that this world is made of.

Loving to learn for life…by educating all pupils to develop the essential knowledge and skills, attitudes and attributes that they need to become educated citizens in today’s society and for their challenges and responsibilities of later life.

The Church of England Vision for Education Deeply Christian, Serving the Common Good was published in July 2016 sets forth the Church’s vision for the future of education which in turn forms the underpinnings for the Vision and Values expressed within this page and more importantly within St Chad’s.  To quote from the document’s executive summary: This is a fresh articulation of the Church of England’s vision for education as we meet the challenges and take the opportunities offered by the present situation. It is not simply for Church schools but, recognising the Church of England’s involvement in education over many centuries, seeks to promote educational excellence everywhere, for everyone.”

Values

Our shared values underpin all that we do and are developed to promote respect, love and the skills for life-long learning. These are:

Hope, Forgiveness, Compassion, Thankfulness, Trust, Friendship, Perseverance, Service, Responsibility, Courage, Creativity and Peace.

Pupils are explicitly taught of these values; through collective worship and through implicit and explicit teaching across the entire school, they underpin each child’s journey through St Chad’s.

The values that the children are studying throughout this academic year are: Hope, Forgiveness, Compassion, Thankfulness, Trust and Friendship.

Awe and Wonder

What do we mean by this phrase?

We want each child to experience the feeling of being so astounded by something that they want to say “Wow, that’s awesome!”
The world is full of moments where this could happen and we at St Chad’s believe that it is part of our role to help pupils find these moments, to help create them and to celebrate them.
As a Church of England school we believe that God’s creation is something to be explored and celebrated at every opportunity.

We do this through explicit and ongoing focus on:

1. Being open

Open to the world around‐ so much to children is new and not fully understood, awe can be a natural response.  We encourage children to look for these moments and celebrate them when they are found, from understanding why two halves make one whole through to seeing the beauty in a rain drop running down a window and more.

Open to feelings‐ from day one we support and teach children to reflect on their own feelings and how they impact their own life and the lives of those around them and how they have the gift to change other’s feelings through actions and deeds.

Open to all ‐ we are a fully inclusive school and an openness to all that creates the world we live in is more than tolerance, it is seeing the wonder in the shared and the difference.

2. Through freedom of spirit:

In creativity.

Of imagination.

Of integration.

To be truly and honestly ourselves and not who we perceive the world wants us to be.

To love.

Some of the ways we create this is through:

Modelling wonder. We get excited when we learn new things together

We are passionate! If we are passionate about what we are teaching then the children tend to become passionate too.

We celebrate!  Everything from festivals to achievements at every level.

We create and set the scene.

We sing hymns and songs that promote virtues.

Have times of quiet reflection at regular times.

We value creativity in all areas of school from art to writing, from maths to sport and more.

We create an environment where children can take risks‐ we teach children not to be afraid to tackle uncomfortable, yet important issues, or to try something they lack self-belief in.

We have high expectations of pupils, from academic success to singing in harmony and much more.

We use creativity whenever and wherever we can.

We make time for play.

We explore the world through visits, visitors, and utilising all available methods.

And so much more!

 “The glory of God is man fully alive.”

Saint Irenaeus.