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.

Fundamental British Values

Our school values link well with the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. We take our responsibility to promote these seriously. You can read more about this by clicking here.

Our School Vision 

Our School Aims

• To make our pupils aware of their true dignity as children of God and to teach and promote respect for other races, religions and cultures;
• To continue to develop strong moral values and a sense of right and wrong;
• To know our children personally and build relationships of mutual trust;
• To be a caring community involving children, parents, staff, governors and priests in the development of the whole child;
• To create a climate of successful learning and teaching in which children are encouraged to develop enquiring minds and work to the best of their ability;
• To stimulate in children a sense of awe and wonder, excitement and enthusiasm about the world around them;
• To encourage children to value their personal contribution to the school and community;
• To encourage children 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.

School

We believe that Christ is at the centre of all that happens within the St Anne’s school family. We grow in God’s love by living according to the practices and teachings of the Catholic Church and by praying together as a school community. We encourage every individual to develop as a whole person: academically, spiritually, physically, socially and emotionally.

Home

We strive to support and understand children and their families, particularly in times of difficulty, and treat them at all times with a sensitivity that maintains the dignity of the individual.

Parish

We expect that the children’s faith journey, which starts at home and is nourished at school, will be supported by the whole parish community.

Liturgies, prayer and collective worship 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 liturgues, with support from teachers.

 “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

Please find our collective worship policy here. 

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. 

Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) - this page is currently under review

At St Anne’s, we believe that RSHE is an essential part of holistic education. Our RSHE is taught in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic church.

It is important that we support children in:

• having good mental and physical health
• keeping themselves safe
• forming healthy, loving and respectful relationships with themselves and others
• embracing our world that God has created

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)