Chiddingstone Church of England School
Educating for life in all its fullness - John 10:10
Aims and Values
Our Vision
'Going above and beyond together'
At Chiddingstone Church of England School, we provide a family orientated education where we go above and beyond together.
As Jesus told us, we are to 'love our neighbour as yourself.' (Mark 12:31)
We celebrate difference and diversity ensuring that every child is valued and makes an important contribution to our unique school. We relate to the story of ‘The Good Samaritan', where the Good Samaritan went above and beyond to look after the man. He even told the innkeeper that he would 'reimburse for any extra expense [he] may have' (Luke 10:35). As a school, we set high expectations for our children to work as a team and achieve their potential. The children are encouraged to aim high and achieve as best they can, whether academic, creative or sporting. Staff also go above and beyond knowing that everything they do for the school is to help the wider team and enable us all to flourish. The strong Parents and Teacher Association (PTA) enables us as a school to provide opportunities for children and as a community to work together, through fundraising events, extra-curricular clubs and other exciting one-off opportunities. The example from both the staff and PTA to the children set the expectation, giving them the tools to aim high and go above and beyond with the support of such a strong team together.
Curriculum Intent
At Chiddingstone Church of England School we aim to provide a creative and vibrant curriculum which puts children at its heart and fosters a love of learning, underpinned by our Church School values. We believe that childhood should be a happy, investigative and enquiring time in a child's life and our curriculum is designed to promote curiosity, explore, excite, sustain children's interest and encourage a thirst for knowledge. It is a highly inclusive curriculum. Our curriculum is planned to give pupils real life and memorable experiences and exposure to a range of cultural opportunities to promote life-long learning. This is often beyond the classroom walls, through an extensive range of educational experiences and visits, Forest School and outdoor learning. Children are encouraged to be reflective and have the confidence to make mistakes and learn from them.
The Cornerstones creative curriculum approach is ambitious and challenging, broad and balanced, knowledge rich and ensures coverage and progression in subject areas. It aims to ensure that children know more and remember more over time but are also able to transfer knowledge and skills in a cross curricular way, so that no subject is taught in isolation and children are able to see connections and relationships. Fluency and application of knowledge and skills to promote mastery is key to our curriculum choices. Personal development and wellbeing is embedded throughout the curriculum and our Church School values are central in supporting children's spiritual, moral social and cultural development as well as diversity and tolerance. Our curriculum encourages pupils to develop resilience, independence and respect so they can become responsible, caring, happy and healthy individuals who are able to make a positive contribution to their community and wider world.
British Values in Practice:
- democracy.
- the rule of law.
- individual liberty.
- mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.
At Chiddingstone Church of England School, we teach these values across the whole curriculum, during Acts of Worship and throughout the school day. As a Church of England School, we believe that modelling this through our Church School Values is key - tolerance, respect and celebration of diversity permeate through our school culture.
Through an inclusive and democratic process, pupils elect their own school Head Girl and Boy who promote these values through their role in the school community. We also run Pupil Action Group meetings, at least once a term, in which the children have the opportunity to put forward their ideas and opinions to their Year 6 representatives - these meetings help develop school and class codes of conduct. We plan a wide variety of extra-curricular trips (for example, visits to a Sikh Gurdwarah, Regents Park Mosque, Canterbury Cathedral and a local synagogue) which reinforce understanding, respect and tolerance of different faiths. We encourage visitors, such as Tom Tugendhat our local MP, to come into school to talk to the children – this helps to teach them about democracy in action.