St Anne's Catholic Primary School

Our School Mission Statement

At St Anne’s we are encouraged to grow in God’s love, respect ourselves and others and do our best in work, prayer and play.

Our School Values

At St Anne’s, we always aim to be STARS! We try our best to show self-respect and teamwork, we always aim high, are ready to learn and show respect.

 

 

Our School Vision 

 

Our School Aims

• To help pupils understand that they are made in the image of God and to become aware of their true dignity as pupils of God;
• To teach and promote respect for other races, religions and cultures;
• To help pupils to grow in virtue and continue to develop strong moral values and a sense of right and wrong;
• To know our pupils personally and build relationships of mutual trust;
• To be a caring community involving pupils, parents, staff, governors and priests in the development of the whole child;
• To create a climate of successful learning and teaching in which pupils are encouraged to develop enquiring minds and work to the best of their ability;
• To stimulate in pupils a sense of awe and wonder, excitement and enthusiasm about the world around them;
• To encourage pupils to value their personal contribution to the school and community;
• To encourage pupils to become active and caring members of the wider community. 
  
  We aim to achieve our Mission by providing an excellent Catholic education for all and provide strong support to strengthen School-Home-Parish links. Please see some examples of how we do this below:
• Father Ian McDole (St Ann's) visits our school weekly to meet with different classes to discuss questions children have about life and faith;
• Father Ian leads termly Masses in school;
• Reconciliation takes place in school during Advent & Lent;
• Children from Year 3 upwards are invited to celebrate Mass at St Ann's Church on Holy Days of Obligation;
• The church provides a range of support for our families that need it.

 

From 1954 until 1992, St Anne's Catholic Primary School was run by the Religious Congregation, Poor Servants of the Mother of God (SMG). 
SMG Charism is very much alive in our school. This means that we believe it is important to recognise that God has given us gifts that we must use to help others, especially those who need it the most.

'We must use the gifts that God has given us for others, not for ourselves only.' (Mother Magdalen Taylor)

Below are some of the ways St Anne’s lives out the SMG Charism.

Charity Support

Throughout the year, the children participate in various fundraising activities to support those in need, both in developing countries and in our local community.

At Harvest time, we collect food for the Epsom and Ewell Food Bank. Each year, the Food Bank states they collect the most contributions from our school!

During November. we support the British Legion by selling poppies to our school community to support the families of those who have fought in wars.

In Advent, we raise funds for 'Mission Together'. This is an organization focused on ‘Children helping Children’. This initiative places children at the heart of the Church’s efforts to support those in need. As well as this, we collect for CAFOD at the end of our Year 5 Advent service and the infant Nativities and Carol concerts. Children also make Christmas shoeboxes for children in Africa. These shoeboxes include toiletries, small toys and stationary.

During Lent, a time for reflection on almsgiving, we choose two charities the children would like to support. The children plan and organise fundraising activities for their chosen charities. We are always grateful for the generosity of response from our families.

School Choir

Our school choir is highly regarded and participates in numerous events throughout the year. As well as leading hymns in some liturgies in school and church, the choir (as well as other year groups) participate in concerts and events in the local community. Prior to Christmas, the choir spreads festive cheer by carol singing at our local care home and during our Christmas fair event. The choir sing Advent hymns and Christmas carols for local people and our whole school community. At our event, we collect donations for CAFOD.

Fairtrade

As part of our RED and curriculum learning, and a special Celebration of the Word during Fairtrade Fortnight, we observe and explore the importance of Fairtrade globally. The focus is on issues such as justice, fair wages, and our responsibilities as global citizens. During Fairtrade Fortnight, we decide together what we can do at home to support Fairtrade.

Prayer and Liturgy are at the centre of every school day. Liturgies are led by different members of staff but children also plan and deliver class and whole school liturgies, with support from teachers.

“Let us commit ourselves afresh this day to prayer.  The conversation that is prayer will form us.  Silence and wonder in the presence of God will form us.” Bishop Richard at Festival 50

 “Remember our Nanny and Grandads.”  Leo

“I like spontaneous prayer. It means I can ask God to look after people I love.”  Joshua

Our School Prayers

Morning prayer O my God, you love me. You’re with me night and day. I want to love you always in all I do and say. I try to please you, Father. Bless me through the day. Amen.	Grace (lunchtime prayer) Bless us, O Lord, as we sit together. Bless the food we eat today. Bless the hands that made the food. Bless us, O Lord. Amen.	End of day prayer God our Father, we come to say thank you for your love today. Thank you for my family and all the friends you give to me. Guard me in the dark of night and in the morning send your light. Amen.
School prayer Heavenly Father, we know you are with us. Help us to always love and care for each other. Give us the confidence to have faith in ourselves and to do our best. Teach us to respect one another as we work together to make St Anne’s a happy and welcoming place. Strengthen our faith as we grow in your love. Amen.	Hail Mary (especially in May & October) Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.	Our Father Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Please find our Prayer & Liturgy policy here. 

“For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope.” - Pope Francis

Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is rooted in Scripture, formed by the wisdom of Church leaders, and influenced by grassroots movements. It is our moral compass, guiding us on how to live out our faith in the world. Our faith calls us to love God and to love our neighbours in every situation, especially our sisters and brothers living in poverty. Following in the footsteps of Christ, we hope to make present in our unjust and broken world, the justice, love and peace of God. Modern Catholic Social Teaching is said to have originated in 1891 with the encyclical letter, Rerum Novarum. Since then, a wealth of teaching continues to give new life to the Scriptures and shape the Church’s response to our modern world. Pope Francis’ continues to add to Catholic Social Teaching with his own encyclicals including Laudato Si’ (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020). From these Catholic social teaching documents and encyclicals we derive core principles. There is no fixed or official list of principles. Different organisations and writers include different ones. However, they will include the same ideas and beliefs. At St Anne’s  we are guided by the following 9 principles: Human Dignity, The Common Good, Participation, Subsidiarity, Stewardship, Solidarity, Preferential Option for the Poor, Distributive Justice and Promoting Peace. 

What is Catholic Social Teaching?

"Love your neighbour as yourself" (Mark 12:31) 

Catholic Social Teaching is based on the belief that God has a plan for creation, a plan to build his kingdom of peace, love and justice. There are different principles that we should strive to live out in our daily lives - we are called to live our faith through our actions. 

Writings by Popes and Catholic leaders show how the Catholic faith can guide our response to these issues. It holds that God has a special place in this story for each of us, whoever we are.

Our part in this plan isn’t just limited to things ‘spiritual’, or things we might do on Sundays, but it involves every aspect of our lives, from the things we pray about, to how we live as a responsible global citizen. Our part in this story is a vocation for the common good, a call to treat everyone as our brothers and sisters. Jesus’ instruction to "love your neighbour as yourself" (Mark 12:31) is at the heart of how Catholics believe they should participate in their community and the wider world.

"Love and charity, are service, helping others, serving others. There are many people who spend their lives in this way, in the service of others. … When you forget yourself and think of others, this is love! And with the washing of the feet the Lord teaches us to be servants, and above all, servants as He was a servant to us, for every one of us.“ (Pope Francis - Jubilee audience)

“Catholic social teaching is fundamental to tackling world issues” (Pope Francis)

For more information, you can watch this short video:

There are nine CST principles, which are linked to characters to aid the pupils's understanding. These are:

Catholic Social Teaching underpins the work of our school and its principles are interwoven within our curriculum and wider school life.

As members of the Catholic Church, we are all called upon to preserve the dignity of all human beings, to care for creation, and to reach out to our sisters and brothers in need. These principles form part of Catholic Social Teaching, a body of work developed by Church leaders over the centuries. Pope Francis emphasises that it is our duty to work together to bring about a more just and peaceful world: to put love into action.

At St Anne’s, we place great emphasis on the importance that our pupils can articulate the connection between Jesus’ teaching and doing good deeds. We teach our pupils about the importance of putting the needs of others before ourselves and show this in our actions, for example, by supporting Epsom and Ewell Foodbank, Mission Together, The Royal British Legion (Poppy Appeal) and CAFOD. Some other ways we carry our CST principles through caring for God’s world is by planting seeds in Banstead, making bird boxes, making bird feeders and making everyone in our school aware of not wasting electricity and why.

Catholic social teaching is used across many subjects, it is not taught just in RE. Many of our Celebrations of the Word and our child-led Celebrations of the Word feature Catholic Social Teaching, where we discuss world events and how our faith challenges us to respond in a particular way. The Prayer Prefects and pupils throughout the school help organise events or suggest and set up events of their own, with adult support, to promote CST and its principles.

We teach our pupils that we must work together to build a better world for the future.

We introduced Prayer Prefects in 2015 to give the children greater responsibility and ownership of their RE learning and the school environment. Each year, two prayer prefects are chosen from each class and are commissioned in a special liturgy.

Our Prayer Prefects have been very busy so far this year!

Their role includes giving advice to children and staff on their prayer focus areas. For example, they help to ensure the correct liturgical colours are being used, check that any artefacts are appropriate for the liturgical season or topic and help keep the areas tidy and fresh. The Prayer Prefects are also responsible for setting up the prayer focuses for phase liturgies and some whole school liturgies.

Year 5 and 6 Prayer Prefects support Fr Ian in preparing for school Masses and Reconciliation services.

Pastoral care

Our high level of pastoral care is an important feature of the school. We make great efforts to ensure that every child feels happy and safe at St Anne’s. Through 'prayer partners', each class makes links with another, so that older children can support and care for younger ones. Standards of behaviour are consistently high and children learn the importance of respecting everyone. 

We are committed to meeting the individual learning needs of every child in our school. We are dedicated to continually developing our approaches to teaching and learning. Should a child need additional support (academic, social, emotional, behavioural), this will be addressed sensitively. We have a variety of support we can offer and we ensure we communicate effectively with children, parents and outside agencies. Please see some of the tabs below for further information, e.g. Rainbows and ELSA. 

ELSA stands for Emotional Literacy Support Assistant. In schools, there will always be children facing life challenges.  These situations and the emotions that follow can detract their ability to engage with learning effectively - our ELSA’s in school help our children get through these struggling times.

We are very lucky to have two fully trained ELSA’s in our school, Mrs Harrington and Ms Moy. They have both been trained by Educational Psychologists to plan and deliver programmes of support for children who are experiencing temporary or longer term emotional needs. 

The majority of ELSA work in school is delivered on an individual basis and sessions are based in our Rainbow Room, a calm, welcoming, safe space for the children to feel supported and nurtured. The sessions are fun and use a range of activities such as games, role-play or therapeutic activities such as mindfulness or arts and crafts.  

ELSA sessions aim to provide support for a range of emotional needs such as self-esteem, social skills, anger management and recognising emotions. Mrs Harrington and Ms Moy establish a warm, respectful relationship with children and provide a reflective space where they are able to share their thoughts and feelings honestly.

Children are usually referred to ELSA by the class teacher or the SENDCo. This will always be done in liaison with parents. We understand that some children may display different behaviours at home than at school, and welcome parental concerns to be shared with the class teacher. Every half term, teachers meet with the ELSAs and SENDCo to discuss referrals and identify and prioritise which children require the six-week programme. Targets are then set and discussed with parents and reviewed after the six-week programme has finished.

Rainbows Bereavement Support

Rainbows is a programme that fosters emotional healing among children who are grieving a death, or any other significant loss in their lives. At St Anne’s, we have a trained Rainbows facilitator who delivers planned programmes to peer support groups of children who may have suffered different losses in their lives. The children are able to share their feelings in a secure environment, with other children in the group, with our caring and compassionate trained adult. Confidentiality is kept at all times unless a child is at risk. The Rainbows groups strictly adhere to the school’s safeguarding policies and procedures. Children have said that Rainbows has helped them with how to deal with the anger they feel and how it is important to share how they are feeling and that they felt more confident and less worried about things.

Class teachers will approach parents if they feel this programme would support a particular child. Parents are also very welcome to approach the class teacher or our SENDCo (Mrs Smith) if they believe Rainbows would benefit their child. 

Please visit the Rainbows website (link below) for more details.  

What we do. - Rainbows Bereavement Support GB (rainbowsgb.org)    

At St Anne’s, we are committed to supporting the emotional health and wellbeing of our children. We know that all children experience challenges which can make them feel a variety of emotions. Through our Relationship education we share knowledge around the development of our mental health. This helps to support them as they develop and experience changes with their mental health.

Children’s books about wellbeing and worry

Ruby’s worry

The koala who could

Have you filled a bucket today?

The huge bag of worries

The worrysaurus

National Literacy Trust’s full list - Childrens_wellbeing_booklist

Useful activities to use at home

Doing yoga, colouring, breathing exercises, focused activities etc. are a really good way to help you feel calm. Here are some links or ideas you may wish to try:

• Go Noodle offers a bank of movement, yoga and mindfulness videos that can be accessed at home
• You Tube offers a wealth of videos to support yoga such as Cosmic Kids Yoga and Cosmic Kids Zen Den
• BBC Supermovers offers children easy-to-follow active learning videos covering a range of topics.
• 10 mindfulness exercises for kids | BBC Good Food
• 5 4 3 2 1 Grounding exercise – This technique will take you through your five senses to help remind you of the present. This is a calming technique that can help you get through tough or stressful situations.

Take a deep belly breath to begin.

5 - LOOK: Look around for 5 things that you can see and say them out loud. For example, you could say, I see the computer, I see the cup, I see the picture frame.

4 - FEEL: Pay attention to your body and think of 4 things that you can feel and say them out loud. For example, you could say, I feel my feet warm in my socks, I feel the hair on the back of my neck, or I feel the pillow I am sitting on.

3 - LISTEN: Listen for 3 sounds. It could be the sound of traffic outside, the sound of typing or the sound of your tummy rumbling. Say the three things out loud.

2 - SMELL: Say two things you can smell. If you’re allowed to, it’s okay to move to another spot and sniff something. If you can’t smell anything at the moment or you can’t move, then name your 2 favourite smells.

1 - TASTE: Say one thing you can taste. It may be the toothpaste from brushing your teeth, or a mint from after lunch. If you can’t taste anything, then say your favourite thing to taste.

• Five Steps to Feeling Calm (use this as a guide to teach your  child)

1. Spread your hand and stretch your fingers out like a star. You can choose your left hand or your right hand. Pretend the pointer finger of your other hand is a pencil and imagine you are going to trace around the outline of your hand and fingers.
2. Start at the bottom of your thumb and slide your finger up your thumb, pause at the top, and then slide your finger down the other side. Now slide your pointer up your second finger, pause, and slide down the other side. Continue tracing your fingers up, pause, and down. Slide your finger slowly, watch your finger move and notice how it feels. Keep going until you have finished tracing your fifth finger (pinky).
3. Now you are ready to add some breathing. Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. Remember to keep it slow and steady.
4. Place your pointer finger at the bottom of your thumb, and breathe in as you slide up. Breathe out as you slide down. Breathe in as you slide up your second finger, and breathe out as you slide down. Keep going until you have finished tracing your fingers and you have taken five slow breaths.
5. How does your body feel now? Do you feel calm or would you like to take another five?

Outdoor Activities

Getting regular fresh air and exercise is key for any person’s wellbeing.

Growing flowers, fruit or vegetables can be very rewarding. Coir is excellent for compost as you can order a small amount and then expand on this by adding water.

Sketching trees, flowers and other things outside can be a great way to get out and about - whether in your own garden or another green space.

These online resources have some great ideas on how to get children outside:

Sustrans is the charity making it easier for people to walk and cycle. They connect people and places, create liveable neighbourhoods, transform the school run and deliver a happier, healthier commute. Join Patrick on YouTube for "At Home Bike Skills with Bike It Pat" No.1 , No.2 and No.3 and No.4

Furthermore, have a look at Mapping Mania!! and Outside in.

Tree Tools for Schools

Surrey Wildlife Trust

RSPB For Families

Wild About Gardens

Useful websites for parents:

Parents Helpline | Mental Health Help for Your Child | YoungMinds

Resource library : Mentally Healthy Schools