Together in God's love we learn, inspire and grow

As Church of England school, everything we do in school is guided by our identity as a church school. Decisions made on a daily basis our made with Christian values at our heart. Our school mission statement is 'Together in God's love we learn, inspire and grow' which was developed with our church St Andrew's Maghull. Each day we strive for our children to develop their spiritually, morally, socially and cultural through a range of experiences including daily collective worship. Each half term we have a focus on one our Christian values, with these being explored through collective worship, worships in class and promoted by our Wow group.  

Our collective worships are led by our Headteacher, all teaching staff, Reverend Janice and Simon the Vicar. We also have other members of the Christian community coming in to deliver collective worship with Brian delivering these on Thursday. 

Our strong RE curriculum is highly influential in the spiritual, moral, cultural, social and emotional development of pupils, making a significant contribution in preparing pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. It strengthens our understanding of Christian values, empowering pupils make positive choices. 

We follow the Sefton SACRE which is supplemented by 'Questful RE’ (developed by Blackburn Diocesan Board of Education). We aim to equip our children with the skills and knowledge to hold their own, informed conversations about faith and religion. Through this syllabus, we ensure the opportunity to develop a wide range of higher level skills such as enquiry, analysis, interpretation, evaluation and reflection, thus deepening children’s understanding of the impact of religion on the world and enabling them to express personal views with consideration and confidence. We supplement Questful RE with Understanding Christianity, a resource developed by the Church of England Education Office. The key purpose of the Understanding Christianity project is to help all teachers support pupils in developing their own thinking and their understanding of Christianity, as a contribution to their understanding of the world and their own experience within it. Units in Questful RE are paired with units from Understanding Christianity to ensure our children receive a deep, rich RE education.

RE lessons are taught weekly with wider opportunities for RE beyond the classroom include visits to church, visitors to school, themed days and weeks and visits to places of religious interest. A maximum of 80% of RE curriculum time is dedicated to learning about Christianity and 20% to other faiths, as recommended by the Church of England. In a week, a minimum of 5% of our curriculum time is used to teach RE. 

RE and SMSC at St Andrew's

Intent

Here, at St Andrew’s Primary CoE Primary School, the aim of Religious Education is to help children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain. We aim for our children to appreciate the way that religious beliefs shape life and our behaviour and for them to develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgments about religious and moral issues and enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

Religious Education is taught throughout the school in such a way as to reflect the overall aims, values, and philosophy of the school. Our school motto is ‘Together in God’s love we learn, inspire and grow’ and we feed this into our teaching on a daily basis. At St Andrew’s, we want Religious Education to play a vital role in our pupils education, social, emotional and spiritual development.

Implementation

The implementation of our intent is carefully planned by our teachers, using the Curriculum provided by the Blackburn Diocese of Education. We ensure that children take part in daily collective worship and that prayer is an important part of their day. The children in our school are encouraged to reflect on what they see around them and act in the way that Jesus taught us. Across the curriculum our children are taught and encouraged to be critical thinkers and therefore this helps to develop their philosophical thinking.

The children regularly attend church and as part our curriculum all year groups should visit a non-Church of England place of worship to find out more about how a wider range of people engage with and celebrate their faith. Our use of prayer week to ensure that children have first hand experiences of their own and other’s faith also helps us to achieve our curriculum intent.

Impact

Through our high quality teaching and commitment to children’s spiritual development all children in our school should make good progress in relation to their knowledge and understanding of Religious Education.

We aspire for all children to positively engage with their religion and that they use this to make a positive impact on their friends, families and the local and wider communities. Our children will have an understanding and respect for other people’s faiths and beliefs.

The children in our school will leave as well rounded individuals with a respect and appreciation for their own religion, beliefs, morals as well as those of others.

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Our Core Values

LDST Vision and Purpose

Learn, Love and Achieve, Together with Jesus

What is our purpose?

Working together with our school communities, provide an excellent education and life-enhancing relationships with the Christian faith and Jesus Christ.

We do this through:

• Being a family of schools that is committed to well-being and supporting each other, so that all children, learners and staff across our Trust, flourish. 
• Connecting with each other to share practice and provide an excellent education that is  built on distinctly Christian values.
• A commitment to inclusion, ensuring that all learners thrive through an education that teaches wisdom, instils hope, nurtures community and embeds dignity and respect.
• Strong bonds of collaboration, innovative approaches to education and a shared purpose amongst schools, families and communities.

What is our vision?

As a Diocesan Trust, our Christian values are intrinsically linked to our commitment to provide an innovative, high quality education, so that children and learners make excellent progress and fulfil their academic potential, by ensuring that:

• We live out our Christian values to develop future citizens who can contribute positively to a caring, compassionate nation

• We share a Trust-wide commitment to providing an education that enables children and learners to flourish and achieve - academically spiritually, morally, socially, culturally, physically.

• We celebrate diversity, address inequality, overcome disadvantage and raise aspirations so that learners can achieve their highest academic potential.

• Access to an inspirational curriculum and excellent teaching enables our children to acquire a deep body of knowledge and a zest for life-long learning

• Our schools  can thrive under outstanding local leadership, accountable to the Executive team and Board of Directors.

• We identify talents and provide opportunities for staff to develop, pursue career developments and contribute significantly to wider improvements

• We maintain a strong emphasis on safeguarding and the mental health and well-being of all our pupils and staff

• Our schools are self-sustaining, inclusive learning communities of professionals who connect and collaborate to share best practice and innovative approaches rooted in informed evidence

Our Core values:

We value Difference:

We are respectful of the:

• Uniqueness of each individual school
• Differences within each school and community

We value Local

• Providing aligned support and central services to empower local leaders to make local decisions that meet the needs of the local communities

We value Collaboration

• We value the opportunities to collaborate and work as a team to improve outcomes across our Trust
• And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds….encouraging one another’ Hebrews 10:24-25.

We value Inclusion

• We welcome all and are committed to ensuring that each pupil receives an educational experience related to their own personal gifts or needs
• We celebrate diversity and the individual talents of our pupils and staff