Vision Statement and Core Values
Vision Statement
At Ickleford Primary School:
We aspire to build a happy and inclusive community underpinned by core Christian values and those shared by other faiths. This will enable us to nurture resilient pupils with a passion for life-long learning, ensuring everyone's potential is fulfilled.
Our Core Values
Find out more details about our core values and understand how we achieve them.
Ensuring a happy teaching environment
We believe that children learn most effectively when they are content and secure, and their days in primary school should be happy.
We will achieve this by: providing a secure and vibrant physical environment; instilling pupils with the confidence to discuss ideas and issues openly with staff in the knowledge that they will be heard; embedding our ethos of achievement through enjoyment and endeavour.
Building an inclusive community
We believe that a successful school is founded on a strong sense of community in which everyone is valued equally. Moreover, in preparing our children for the modern world, it is vital that their sense of belonging and contributing extends beyond the school premises.
We will achieve this by: continuing to build strong bonds within and between year groups, between pupils and staff, and between the school and parents; acknowledging the importance of diversity, and putting equity and inclusion at the heart of everything we do; fostering a culture of teamwork and cooperation; sharing pupils’ successes and achievements; developing our links with the education authorities, the local community and wider.
Instilling values
We believe that a strong moral compass is essential for individuals and society. Education is much more than learning facts, and schools play an important role in fostering and developing individuals who can contribute to, and thrive in, the modern world.
We will achieve this by: continuing to embed Christian values and those of other faiths along with secular ideals to help create model young citizens; evolving our programme of Values Education; having an ethos in which everyone is valued and treated equitably; teaching children about their roles as custodians of our fragile environment; ensuring that pupils understand the importance of individual responsibility and take ownership of their actions.
Developing resilient pupils
We believe that pupil resilience and wellbeing are paramount. A resilient child takes educational risks, is unafraid to make mistakes and learns from them, and develops a ‘growth mindset’. Equally important is equipping our pupils with the skills and tools to handle the stresses of everyday life in a challenging, rapidly-changing world.
We will achieve this by: building on our bespoke Personal, Social, Health and Economic (P.S.H.E) curriculum; using sport and physical education to bolster mental as well as physical wellbeing; fostering the skills that will help children develop emotional intelligence.
Creating independent thinkers with a passion for learning
We believe that learning is a life-long journey, and our contribution is a key part of building pupils’ educational foundations. Our curriculum must be broad and presented in a way that ignites children’s thirst for knowledge. Equally importantly, pupils need to learn to question, weigh evidence, and come to informed decisions based on facts, and learn how to absorb and process information as a foundation for further learning.
We will achieve this by: continuing to evolve our broad curriculum, in which all subjects are of value; investing in high-quality staff and their professional development to ensure the most effective teaching techniques; equipping pupils with the skills for critical thinking and ensuring they ‘learn how to learn’ independently.
Nurturing potential
We believe that all pupils have unique talents, and that our role is to help them identify them, nurture and celebrate them, and ensure that everyone achieves to the best of their ability.
We will achieve this by: treating pupils as individuals while promoting the benefits of teamwork; ensuring that there is equality of opportunity throughout the school; continuing to expect that children will work hard, knowing that we have high aspirations for them; maintaining our standards of academic rigor and excellence.
