Vision and Aims

VISION
St. John’s – 'high standards through a caring community'

WHAT IS OUR CORE PURPOSE?
St. John’s Church of England Primary School is a happy, vibrant community where we ‘Love Thy Neighbour’.  Our school is committed to nurture and celebrate the varied talents of all our children, to enable them to achieve the best possible progress through creative learning experiences, which prepare them for life and the challenges they will meet. We will achieve this through focusing on:

• Core standards
• Life skills
• Wider opportunities
• Christian Values
• Community

Our school vision of ‘High Standards through a Caring Community’ is theologically rooted in the second part of the greatest commandment which tells us to ‘Love thy neighbour’ (Leviticus 19:18).

Our Theologically Rooted Vision

We believe that ‘high standards through a caring community’ echoes the teachings of this second part of the greatest commandment.  ‘Love thy neighbour’ is found in the Old Testament of the Bible, specifically in the Book of Leviticus (Leviticus 19:18). The essence of this teaching is to promote kindness, compassion, and goodwill towards others, regardless of their background, beliefs, or circumstances. It emphasises the importance of treating others with love, respect, and empathy, fostering a sense of community, understanding, and harmony among people. The teaching transcends religious boundaries and promotes the idea of universal love and cooperation amongst various cultures and contexts.

Although we are a Church of England school, we do have many families and children from other faiths and backgrounds.  We therefore believe it fitting to root our vision in teachings from the bible that encourage us to reach out and care beyond simply our closest neighbours.

In the New Testament, Jesus used the Parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of loving those who may not be our friends. Jesus was asked to confirm what he meant by the word 'neighbour'. This is when he told the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), to explain that people should love everyone, regardless of their background or beliefs.

As a school we share this story with the children and our families as an effective way to demonstrate how we would want all our school community to treat each other.

The image to the right is used as a visual reference for our Governors, Staff, Parents and Children to remind them of the expectation to ‘Love thy Neighbour’.  The shadow being a cross reminds us that we should be reflecting the behaviours of God in all we do and the decisions we make.

Each half term we focus on one of our 12 Christian Values: service & sacrifice, trust, equality, friendship, generosity, peace, forgiveness, thankfulness, perseverance and courage in order to help the children understand what it means to 'Love they Neighbour' and ultimately demonstrate ‘High Standards through a Caring Community’.

HOW WILL WE ACHIEVE IT?
Our aims are:

• To have high expectations of all our children, particularly with regard to behaviour.
• To work as a team towards our shared goals – with colleagues, children, families, governors, church and the wider community.
• To provide a well-managed, safe environment in which our school community can learn.
• To provide high quality teaching to meet the individual needs of all our children, within a broad, balanced and creative curriculum.
• To focus on how we learn as well as what we learn.
• To promote, respect, tolerance, responsibility and initiative within our diverse school, local, British and global community.
• To help our children to develop spiritual and cultural understanding.
• To promote the theological principle of ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ and the Christian values of love, service & sacrifice, trust, equality, friendship, generosity, peace, forgiveness, respect, thankfulness, perseverance & courage.
• To provide a curriculum that supports keeping safe, staying healthy, enjoying and achieving, contributing to the community and social and economic well-being.
• To actively encourage strong home-school links.
• To provide an ethos that helps to develop self-confident, well-motivated children with a high self-esteem and a love of learning.
• To provide many opportunities for the children to develop socially and emotionally and practice the skills of communication, sharing and friendship.