School Vision & Aims

Our Vision

“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Matthew 5:14-16.

We believe that everyone is precious and loved by God.

We aspire to let our light shine in all we do.

We nurture and empower one another to flourish.

Together we shine in our world by showing compassion and by serving others.

Let God’s light shine through us.

Our Mission 

St Mary’s is a small, caring Church of England Primary School. It is committed to supporting our pupils to be happy, successful and fulfilled throughout their lives. We believe that everyone is precious and loved by God. We aspire to be a high achieving school that provides an excellent education:

• promoting the high standards of teaching and learning
• being inclusive, celebrating diversity and valuing all religions, faiths, cultures and backgrounds
• providing a rich and stimulating curriculum that will inspire and challenge
• being a happy, healthy and safe school
• providing excellent care, guidance and support with a strong partnership between school, parents and the community.

We seek to promote six Christian values of wisdom, hope, peace, compassion, love and thankfulness, each linked by our school vision and bible verse. We believe these help to prepare our children to show the “St Mary’ Way” and to live a successful and fulfilling life being:

• considerate and respectful with excellent manners
• confident, happy, independent and self-motivated
• co-operative and collaborative
• honest and trustworthy
• resilient, hardworking and determined
• highly principled with moral, spiritual, cultural and social awareness, including shared British Values.

Our School Improvement Aims for 2022/23

The St Mary’s School Improvement Plan is a working document showing the improvement priorities across the school year, along with the monitoring of progress.  The school’s priorities are agreed by the governing body, the headteacher and senior leaders.   In light of the Covid-19 pandemic and disruption to education, school continues to work through this time of recovery for all at St Mary’s, driven by our school vision.

 Quality of Education Aims

• Improve the children’s standards in reading, writing and maths.
• Further improve the school’s vision across the curriculum to support pupil outcomes.
• Develop consistency of good and/or better teaching across the school.
• Strengthen and develop the expertise of all staff, in order to recognise and remove barriers to learning (inc. those caused by SEND), so that all children are fully engaged and focused on their learning at all times.

 Behaviour and Attitudes Aims

• Continue to strengthen the school’s sense of identity, so that children, parents/carers, prospective parents/carers, current, new staff and the wider community have a shared understanding of who we are, what we value and are motivated to become involved in the life of the school using their skills, knowledge and experience to enrich the learning experience and development.
• Improve school attendance and confidence in attendance at school post pandemic.
• To share the school vision further in aspects of playtime and lunchtime to maintain strong standards of behaviour.
• Revisit and improve the pupil leadership contributions across the school following the pandemic.
• Ensure all children develop a culture of inclusion, caring and respect for others around them, both within and outside the school gates.

 Personal Development Aims

• To maintain and improve the children’s wellbeing across the school day.
• To ensure that the children are enjoying their schooling and developing as unique and well-rounded individuals.
• Raise awareness of, and promote excellent practice within, pastoral provision (and intended outcome) across the school so that it is used effectively to support children’s well-being.
• To extend parental engagement across the school to support partnerships, particularly post pandemic.
• Develop a whole school mental health strategy, through the introduction of a Senior Mental Health Lead, to strengthen understanding of signs/symptoms and support mechanisms available.

Leadership and Management aims

• To build the capacity of the school’s leadership team, including the Governing body, to deliver the school’s vision and values and achieve improvements where required.
• To develop the school’s leadership team to flourish and grow in their roles so that they can achieve a consistently good/and better quality of teaching, manage the school effectively and achieve personal and professional satisfaction.
• To develop subject leaders to make judgements about the children’s attainment and progress in their subject providing support, advice and guidance where necessary.
• Continue building on deanery links to share good practice, to network, to combine capabilities, and benefit from economies of scale and other cost efficiencies so that the children and staff enjoy an improved school experience.
• To recruit new governors to fill vacancies on the FGB and work in partnership with governors and staff in sustaining the school post pandemic and to flourish in empowering pupils to achieve and in supporting the local community to flourish.

 Early Years Foundation Stage Aims

• Ensure good and/or better provision and standards of provision are maintained
• With an increase of needs amongst pupils, to support the transition of pupils to their new school.
• To build on community and parental engagement to ensure good partnerships are in place.
• To continue to increase the level of Good Level of Development attainment to be in line with the National Average.

Let There Be Light

Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, retells the Creation story, accompanied by striking illustrations from Nancy Tillman. This wonderful story sparked the start of a whole school art project with The Little Angel Theatre. This retelling of the biblical story of creation vividly portrays the wonder and beauty of God’s creation on each of the seven days.

‘In the very beginning, God’s love bubbled over when there was nothing else–no trees, no birds, no animals, no sky, no sea–only darkness.’