Vision and Values - St Andrew's Primary Academy

Vision and Values

Christian values, high expectations, treasuring uniqueness - sitting at the heart of the community.

“...I have come in order that you might have life — life in all its fullness.”

John 10:10

As a Church of England School, we have a vision that permeates all that we do. Our vision guides us all and helps us to reflect upon how we can be compassionate, respectful, aspirational individuals with the resilience to cope with the challenges of life. 

Our Christian values and high expectations afford every pupil the opportunity to achieve their full potential.  We treasure the uniqueness of each pupil and meet the needs of each individual in our nurturing environment.

We believe that the core values of friendship, making good choices, perseverance, peace, love and respect drive all that we do both within the school and the wider community.  We seek to establish strong links with parents, the Parish and the wider community in order to ensure that students are afforded the best opportunities to realise their potential in a safe, happy and creative environment. 

We acknowledge and delight in the fact that we are all different and believe in celebrating and valuing different cultures and beliefs, abilities and talents.  Events such as "Sing your heart out" have allowed students to work collaboratively with other schools and share these developing talents with the wider community and we are keen to foster such diverse opportunities for all students.   

We enable our pupils to gain cultural capital through residential experiences, theatre visits and trips to London. The children receive a wide range of adventurous and cultural experiences allowing them to develop self-confidence and explore the wider world.

We believe that pupils are entitled to a rich and challenging curriculum. Such learning, and all of their other extra-curricular experiences, will allow all students to broaden their horizons and embrace the different attitudes and opinions they will encounter.

There is a sense of community and, although a small village school, we acknowledge our responsibility in opening the eyes of our pupils to the wider world as well as embracing and valuing the community in which we live. We believe in encouraging our pupils to take part in local events to demonstrate our core values in relation to the local community and as global citizens.

Our School Council represent their class and lead fundraising initiatives such as The Samaritan’s Purse Shoe Box Appeal, raising money for Children in Need and a local charity for homeless people. We are proud of the courageous advocacy our pupils demonstrate.

The Wellbeing Ambassadors meet regularly and run activities to promote health and happiness. They meet with our wellbeing leader and have organised activities such as mindfulness colouring, games which encourage communicating with others and thinking about the mental health of ourselves and others.

Eco-club members work with our Forest School leader to bring about positive changes to our school environment. They have promoted encouraging more birds into the area, planted trees as part of developing a tree nursery and encourage energy saving and recycling across the school. The group have been visited by Chardstock Eco-group, Devon Resource Futures and Plastic Free Axminster, all of whom have helped with our climate change and sustainability work.

The physical development of our pupils has been developed by our Play Leaders who have been trained to develop active play for all of our children. They create games and competitions for children of all ages and abilities.  They regularly get to request additional equipment needed for the activities they organise.

Core Values

As a Church of England School we have six core values that permeate all that we do. Our core values guide us all and help us to reflect upon how we can be compassionate, respectful, aspirational individuals with the resilience to cope with the challenges of life.

Our Christian values are:

  • Autumn 1 - Friendship
  • Autumn 2 - Making good choices
  • Spring 1 - Perseverance
  • Spring 2 - Peace
  • Summer 1 - Love
  • Summer 2 - Respect

Our shared worships teach and share these core values with the children to ensure that everyone in our community demonstrates these values and are a 'blessing to others'.

Ethos Committee

Governors, Heads of schools and Christian Distinctiveness Co-ordinators from across the Academy Trust meet once a term to continually support and progress the Ethos of each school by combining a variety of expertise and sharing strengths from other schools. They ensure RE, Ethos and SMSC is delivered to a high standard in every school.

Together, we work to investigate different areas of Christian distinctiveness and create action plans to improve these areas, which are shared with the governing body. We also regularly evaluate how we enable children and adults to flourish, how we actively create a culture of justice and responsibility and how collective worship allows adults and pupils to flourish.

Collective Worship

Monday - Whole school core value worship

Tuesday - Friendship circle house worship

Wednesday - Key stage worship

Thursday - Key stage singing worship - praising through song.

Friday - Celebration Worship