pupils’ spiritual development is shown by their · 2017-09-27 · pupils’ spiritual development...
TRANSCRIPT
Pupils’ spiritual development is shown by their:
beliefs, religious or otherwise, which inform their perspective on life and their interest in and respect for different people’s feelings and values
sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning about themselves, others and the world around them, including the intangible
use of imagination and creativity in their learning
willingness to reflect on their experiences.
Christ-centred mission statement
Our school’s mission statement is based on Christian values and principles:
“As a Church of England School we seek to provide a Christian education for the children of the parish of St. Peter’s London Docks
and for those who elect to come to our school. Children are presented with the teachings of the Christian faith as the revelation of
God’s truth and are encouraged to grow in that faith, respecting the beliefs and cultures of others. Education is seen as being
concerned with excellence in learning and for the spiritual and social growth of children, developing the individual potential of each
child to the fullest.”
Bright Beginnings, Faith for the Future
Every day at St Peter’s Primary School, the staff & governors work to make sure that St Peter’s children:
have respect for themselves and others
are enthusiastic, enquiring learners
know what it feels like to have done their best and achieve
understand the value of prayer and its place in their lives
understand the importance of goodness, honesty, and hard work
have a clear set of values; understanding their rights and responsibilities
have the skills and opportunity to work collaboratively
have shared friendship & learned how to get along well with other people
have happy memories of their time with us
have aspirations to embrace every opportunity to further their education, knowledge, skills and interests, throughout their
live
St Peter’s LIGHT Values
Love
Inspiration
Grace
Hope
Truth
Goodness
Joy
Friendship
Collaboration
Service
Self-discipline
Thankfulness
Faith
Belief
Reverence
Creativity
Courage
Encouragement
Ambition
Kindness
Forgiveness
Peace
Humility
Compassion
Consideration
Politeness
Resilience
Patience
Confidence
Perseverance
Enthusiasm
Faithfulness
Diligence
Respect
Honesty
Justice
Stewardship
Wisdom
Trustworthiness
Peacemaker
St Peter’s Procession
Every year on 29 June we hold St Peter’s Procession; we walk around the streets of Wapping, carrying statues and
banners and singing praises to God. The whole school and parents then attend a solemn mass.
As part of the St Peter’s procession, every year group creates a big display related to the Bible. The St Peter’s church
then holds a flower competition for the best floral display for each pictures.
Harvest Festival – We scare the Hunger! Every year in September we hold a whole school Harvest festival where we thank God for blessing us with harvest and food to eat. We link up with our local food bank, knowing that many food banks in London are running out of stock after long summer holidays during which families couldn't rely on free school meals for their children. We explain that to our pupils through assemblies and class work, emphasising how privileged we are to have enough and how important it is to share our blessing with those in need. Every year there is an incredible response; we are almost "flooded" with food and toiletries and the Tower Hamlets food bank needed lots of crates to take it all away!
The Harvest Festival was also our local project for the WE Charity, which we support through our local project
(Harvest festival) and an international project (adopting a village in Ecuador). WE Charity teaches children to think
globally and fight social injustice.
Shrove Tuesday
In February we celebrate the Shrove Tuesday in a traditional British style – with Pancake races! Again we ask for a donation and this time the money goes to Ecuador to support the needy children and their families, just as it says in the Bible: “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ (Matthew 25:44-45)
Christmas at St Peter’s
Christmas is the time when we celebrate that Jesus was born as the light of the world to save us from our sins. It’s a
family celebration and at our school we invite families for the festivities! We have a Christmas fete where children
sell their art and craft, EYFS & Y1 present a Nativity play, Y2 does a nativity at St Peter’s church and KS2 organise a
Christmas concert. On top of that our wonderful creative staff create Santa’s grotto which is hugely popular by all
the families during the fete!
Easter at St Peter’s
At Easter we learn about Jesus’ last days and why He died on the cross. It is also the time when we enjoy lots of
lovely British traditions such as the Pancake races or decorating Easter bonnets.
Opportunities for prayers and reflection
The pupils and staff are given an opportunity to express religious reflection and spiritual practices during collective
worship assemblies and weekly mass; we also have a prayer corner outside the hall with a prayer box. Everyone is
invited to write a prayer request and put it in a special box and then the school priest, prays for all these needs.
At the end of the day we also say our school prayer, written by Father Jones:
Heavenly Father, bless our school,
All who serve, all who learn,
All who teach and all who work in this place.
Make this a happy community where we may learn to serve you and one another.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
My child told me about the prayer box and
sounded very excited and confident that
somebody is taking it seriously. What a lovely idea!
(Parent)
Proverbs in Religions
Our last RE rolling program focused on “Proverbs in Religions”.
Our School Development Plan for 2016/17 was titled
“Proverbs, Problems, Possibilities” and we focused on
overcoming obstacles, gaining wisdom and reaching high.
Each class has chosen a proverb from a world religion
(Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and native religions) and during five weeks we explored
its meaning and also how we can learn from it and become better people. The children greatly enjoyed discussing
the proverbs and some parents commented on what their children said about them at home!
Learning about other religions and cultures
Although we are a Christian school, we are a multi-cultural and multi-religious school. We teach about other
religions and other festivals as well and we aim to promote mutual understanding and respect.
Children in Nursery have learnt about the Chinese New Year
and they had a go at writing Chinese letters and numbers.
Y2 pupils studied Judaism and had lots of fun
building a ‘sukkah’ for the Feast of Tabernacles.
It was fun because we had to do it
all by ourselves!
When it is the Festival of
Tabernacles, the Jews celebrate
forty years of walking in the
desert.
I learnt that some people can sleep
in them.
There was a hole in a fabric and I
just popped my finger through it
and Miss squeezed it!
Family trip to St Paul’s Cathedral
(17. 6. 2017)
One of our Saturday’s family trips (“Apples & Pears trip”) took us right
up, up and above London - to the very top of St Paul's cathedral! But
before enjoying the stunning views, we had exercised our architectural skills in the City Centre by building
different kinds of Lego houses in family teams - it was quite a challenge! Having been treated with lovely
cakes as a sweet reward, we went on to explore the City: did you know that Christopher Wren built not
only St Paul's cathedral, but also the Monument and 23 other churches?
We greatly enjoyed a guided tour through St Paul’s Cathedral, learning about its history, identifying the
paintings and its meaning and soaking in the wonderful atmosphere of this house of prayer!
I liked climbing the Dome
because I liked seeing the
view all the way down.
I’ve never been to St Paul’s
Cathedral before. I liked going
upstairs because I had a birds-
eye view of the whole London.
It was cool to have my family
there because I’ve never been
up the stairs and neither have
my parents.
Sense of enjoyment and fascination through Arts
One of our ‘rolling programs’ in 2016-17 was Art. Through a series of lessons the children have learnt to
develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and
space and to use a range of materials creatively to design and make products.
We coloured our
monsters in and we did
the background and
where we used pencils
we covered it with black
to see it – it would be
much clearer!
I liked colouring and I liked
how we did the monsters
because they were all
different and different
colours.
We did it because we had to make big
monsters. We drew the lines, then
coloured the backgrounds. We used a
pencil first and then drew over it with
a black felt tip.
Sense of enjoyment, fascination and pride through our gardening
projects
We run a gardening club once a week during a stay and play. Everyone has the opportunity to join and many
children enjoy feeling the success when they see the fruits (or veggies!) of their labour. For some of them it also
means tasting some new food and exploring different textures and flavours. At the end of the year we went to the
Tower Hamlets town hall to sell our crops!
Later on in the year we were invited to return back for a ‘food market’ – Y4 and Y1 made healthy meals and then
some Y4 representatives practised their marketing skills when selling the food to the Town Hall employees, including
the Mayor of Tower Hamlets!
It was a fulfilling experience which
helped me to see business, marketing
and sales in a new light by taking a
home-made twist to it.
I enjoyed selling the food because it was
fun talking to people and selling things we
made and also meeting the Mayor.
Pets and animals at the school
Living in inner London, the children don’t have many opportunities to interact with ‘creatures great and small’ and
so we aim to give them as many possibilities over the year as possible. There is a very popular fish tank outside the
headteacher’s office, a pond with goldfish in the Foundation Stage playground and a frog pond in KS2. Many
children find watching the fish fascinating and it has got a calming effect on the children.
Once a year we also have chicks in Nursery which gives children the opportunity to explore the lifecycles and marvel
at the world around them. They are also learning to handle them carefully and feed them which help them to
understand the needs of those around them. This year our Nursery children had duck eggs and hatched five little
ducklings! They were well loved by all the other classes (and staff!) and some even cried when it was time to say
goodbye!
We named our ducklings Mickey,
Henny, Daffy, Daisy and Donald.
We learnt a duck dance
called ‘Do The Duck’.
I liked hatching them. We were
waiting a long time.
I liked that they were so cute and I always
wanted to have one as a pet but I already
have a fish at home.
All Creatures Great and Small – learning outside the classrooms
A huge part of our broad curriculum is exploring the world around us, often through the Nature. Many of our pupils
live in flats and can’t therefore have any pets and Zoos are often very expensive. We therefore regularly visit city
farms, zoos and other places where the children can learn about wildlife in an affordable way within supportive
environment.
We were at camping and on the
last day we could touch the
animals. It felt really soft, I
thought it would be scaly.
I liked the love birds
because they were so
small and so tiny and
they looked like babies
but they were actually
adults. And they
tweeted and I like birds
that tweet.
We were doing ponding diping and
looking for little animals. We
found a bit one! Ait was like a
grasshopper, green, big as my
finger.
It tickled me! I felt like I
don’t want to touch it
because it would scare
me but then my friend
encouraged me so I had
a go. I thought it would
be rough but it was
smooth and nice. It felt
like a massage.
Fascination with nature
Y5 went for a one day residential to Epping Forest, where they enjoyed making dens, campfires and lives as man
versus wild!
I liked den making
because we were
allowed to do
whatever we
wanted and it was
fun.
The best part was the bit
when we made a fire
because I never made a
fire before and I never
slept in a tent and it was
fun burning a toast!
The best bit was to touch the snakes because I
was scared of snakes but I touched it and the
fear was gone.
“The Angel Game”
Some classes were playing an “angel game” – each child
picked a name from a hat and they were that pupil’s
“angel” for the duration of Anti-bullying week. The idea
was to secretly serve him/her and take care of his/her
wellbeing. At the end of the week the pupils wrote thank
you messages to their “angels” and to show their
appreciation.
“The angel game” was also played by the staff and there
were many lovely gifts on the staffroom table as well as
positive messages on a golden “Good Deed Feed” display in the staffroom. Many members of staff commented on
the wonderful atmosphere and that they felt closer with each other.
It was exciting and there was a nice
vibe among the staff when everyone
was guessing who their angel is.