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"Growing and Learning Together In God's Love"
Ambitious for achievement, character before qualification
At St Mark’s, we are ambitious for our children to achieve well, and believe that in order to achieve this, we must put character before qualification so that we develop each and every child. Our real hope is that in all that we do, we are able to put in firm foundations for our children, thereby making a difference to themselves, to their friends and family, and to the wider community- both now and in the future. We want our children to positively impact our world. How do we do all of this? We grow and learn together in God’s love.
Distinctive Christian Values
Our school is rooted in our distinctive Christian values of love, forgiveness, hope and faith (click to find out why!). The basis of these values is God’s deep love for us. We hold these values dear, and weave them into our everyday life at St Mark’s. They make us who we are. Importantly, we teach and live out these values from a Christian perspective and understanding. They help us to understand ourselves and our relationships with others in the context of God’s love for us.
Rich Curriculum
We desire our children to experience a full and rich curriculum which is irresistible for all children to learn and irresistible for all teachers to teach. We believe that excellent learning experiences underpinned by high quality teaching set in a highly nurturing environment are essential for children to achieve and develop well in all areas.
Inclusive
We are a fully inclusive school; we welcome children of all backgrounds, beliefs, cultures and circumstances. We recognise and celebrate our differences, too. As God loves us unconditionally, and made us all unique. Therefore, every single child and adult in our community is special. We believe this is at the heart of who God is.
Community is key
We love to work with our whole community; indeed, we were made to live in community with one another. Everyone has a part to play in educating our children including parents, governors, staff, members of our local community, and organisations in our own country and around the world. And as we help our children, so we help one another and build a better, more richly-connected world. “It takes a whole village to raise a child.”
Agents of Change
We believe it’s crucial that our children see themselves as making a positive impact on our world. We help them to see themselves as Agents of Change, making our world a better place through their simple actions. This may start at school – in the classroom, on the playground, bringing a smile, sharing resources, or playing together. Find out more here.
We Are One
Our world is amazing! We’re made up of many different cultures and races, colours and beliefs, interests and skills, abilities and challenges. We see these as reasons to celebrate our shared humanity. We need to help our children see the richness of the world and see themselves as part of our world. Whilst our school community may not represent the full tapestry of the world, we need to give our children experiences that do. We help our pupils to stand up for what is right, and see that whatever their own background, they can be equally happy and successful! Read more here.
Life-long Learners
We want our children to be excellent learners for life, and so we have 8 learning behaviours which are underpinned by and linked to our Christian values. They help to develop the skills needed for life-long learning, as well as the understanding of what that means. Whilst knowledge is interesting and helps us make sense of our world, we know that learning is more than gathering knowledge. We need to learn how best to learn, and our learning behaviours help with this.
Emotionally Healthy
We are acutely aware that the emotional health of our pupils is paramount. As part of their character development, we want our pupils to be emotionally intelligent, resilient and actively empathetic. We employ a number of strategies to develop this. More recently, we are using HeartSmart to help them understand and live out what we believe are excellent principles and practices for growing healthy hearts and minds. Unsurprisingly, the High Five statements closely match our Christian values, and demonstrate a memorable, practical outworking of them.
To find out more, please read our page on our Christian Values, Learning Behaviours and HeartSmart