Dear families and friends of St Cecilia’s
At St Cecilia’s, our vision is unified and shared. We are a caring Catholic school with high standards and expectations for all our pupils, rooted in the Gospel values that we model and build our lives upon. We believe all of our pupils have the potential to discover, develop and rejoice in their God given talents and abilities, whilst answering to their faith as individuals, and actively responding to God’s call to work towards a common good. We promote forgiveness and encourage resilience, ensuring pupils do not give up and persist in the face of setbacks when they occur.
Our curriculum promotes a broad range of knowledge and skills, allowing each child to discover and pursue their own interests and passions. It equips pupils with the skills and knowledge needed for them to understand, interpret, and flourish in the world in which they live; this goes beyond exam success. The curriculum is our progression model; instructing our pupils how they can ‘better’ at each subject. Thus, the knowledge within each curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced as a ‘path’ that can make learning each subject more accessible. The curriculum is ambitious for all within our school community, including those with SEND; every pupil has access to the same essential knowledge, yet as skilled teachers we adapt our teaching, scaffolding and respond effectively to the needs of all our pupils.
At St Cecilia’s, we are continuously monitoring and looking to improve the entirety of each pupil’s experience with us, providing a well-rounded education and formation which celebrates our pupils’ academic, social, emotional, and spiritual achievement. Personal development flows through everything we do, including our curriculum, whole school events and co-curricular opportunities.
Our school is a happy and safe place where pupils thrive. Pupils are proud to be part of our community and the community are proud of St Cecilia’s. Wellbeing is at the forefront of all we do. Staff feel valued and supported and enjoy their job with workload always being reviewed and monitored.
We are restless and always looking to improve, but we are not driven by ‘fads’. Staff are supported to progress professionally through a comprehensive CPD programme that is founded in research. We continuously strive to provide the highest standards in everything we do. We provide a positive learning environment that enables pupils to learn and teachers to do their job well, through a robust and well implemented behaviour recovery system.
Teaching and Learning is the key focus for our school. Teachers work collaboratively to find creative solutions and share good practice. If something is proven to work, then we will take the necessary time to embed it rather than shifting from one focus to the next. We provide a robust but low threat system for quality assuring T&L allowing staff the freedom to try new things and not being afraid to fail.
Within lessons you will see a range of pedagogical approaches to suit the nature of the task and respond to pupil needs. This is underpinned by an established set of known principles that promote inclusive learning such as us establishing or revisiting prior knowledge, habitual inclusive questioning, retrieval activities, practice and rehearsal and checking for understanding.
Reading is a key priority for the school. In addition to whole school diagnostic testing which supports bespoke intervention for struggling readers, lessons prioritise reading opportunity as well as being designed into specific tasks that allow it to be manipulated and scrutinised, often at the vocabulary written or oracy level. Our relentless focus on explicit vocabulary instruction is evident in all planned learning and implemented practice.
We promote and sustain intellectual curiosity, an enthusiasm for learning from others, for both staff and pupils. We are a great school that do ordinary things extraordinarily well. Honesty is key to our community; we will always admit where there are weaknesses, promote trust and phronesis at all levels. This is what drives us forward in our pursuit of sustained academic excellence and in the formation of our pupils.
Mrs Hall
Headteacher
Mission Statement
School Prayer
School Hymn
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