We are a Church School, affiliated to St Peter and St Paul, Saltwood

The school, although a maintained school, has a Church of England “aided” status.  This means that the Church nominates the majority of Governors.  We consider it reasonable to assume that parents who send their children here are sympathetic to the Christian character of the school. We attend our church for worship for special festivals such as Harvest, Christmas, Easter and Ascension as well as every other week during the term.  The Governors are responsible for the running of the school and regularly meet to discuss the development of the school.  The school retains strong links with the Kent County Council but is directed by the Canterbury Diocesan Board of Education.

Our roots are firmly planted in the Church of England and, to this day, a strong and active association continues.  The date of the school’s foundation is believed to be 1723.  In the 1830’s there was only an infant school built opposite the Green.  In 1852 our Old School was erected in School Road providing education for infants and junior children.  This was demolished some years ago to make way for new housing.  The present new school was opened in 1968 and in 1999 and 2006 underwent further development.

Christian Values

Our Christian Values are those of Love, Creativity and Strength.

We encourage our children to believe that they can help to make the world a better place, as shown in Luke 5: 17-27:

We hear how some men carried their paralysed friend to be healed by Jesus. Because of the crowd they could find no way into the house where he was. So they carried him up to the roof, made an opening in the tiles, and let him down on his bed in to the middle of the group in front of Jesus. Jesus, seeing how much faith they had, healed the man and sent him home. In this story we can see our school values brought to life through action. The men showed love for their friend by taking him to Jesus, they showed creativity in finding a way to get through the crowd and strength in working together to place him in front of Jesus. We help our children to become strong and confident learners, who believe in themselves and develop the skills they need to make a positive difference in the world.

 How then do we live?

Our Christian Values of Love, Creativity and Strength inform our curriculum which in turn aims to develop children’s independence, self-expression, resilience, communication skills, creativity, self-belief, enquiry skills and understanding of diversity.

Each value also emphasises the qualities of the Trinity.

Each of the key values have been subdivided into different themes.  Each theme is clearly linked to a Bible story and a “big question” such as, “Are people who are happy more thankful than those who are not?”

We firmly believe that academic success is just one part of our school and we aim to develop our pupils in all areas.  We place a high priority on children behaving in a respectful way to adults and their peers and we consider that every child is special.

In addition the themes are nurtured in different ways.  This includes:

• Our daily act of worship
• Class and school displays
• In reflection corners
• In our spiritual garden
• In our wide ranging acts of charitable giving
• In our positive interactions with and between all members of the school and local community
• In our focus on skills for learning and in particular resilience and self belief.