Our Vision

We are a welcoming, inclusive family with a strong Christian ethos. We continually aim to be an excellent school where people care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical and expect more than others think is possible. 

St Peter’s Church of England Primary school has served the community of Portishead for over 200 years and we are committed to our partnership with Portishead Church of England, and in particular, St Peter’s Parish Church we seek to enrich the lives of all in our community. We continue to honour the following commitment:

Recognising its historic foundation, St Peter’s will preserve and develop its religious character in accordance with the principles of the Church of England and in partnership with the Church at parish and diocesan level.

St Peter’s aims to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality within the context of Christian belief and practice, welcoming all regardless of their faith or belief. It encourages an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith and promotes Christian values through the experience it offers to all its pupils.

Our Intent:

We have a strong, whole-school understanding of learning which underpins our curriculum intent:

Learning is the long-term retention of knowledge, and the ability to transfer and connect this to different contexts.

Excellence in all we do: 

Our curriculum is based around knowledge, wisdom and skills.

Knowledge:  reading is at the heart of all we learn in order to ensure that all pupils can access a broad and balanced curriculum. Without this they will be unable to access our rich curriculum based on the following principles:

      Knowledge underpins learning and is deepened and secured by pupils

• The knowledge content is specified in detail
• Knowledge is taught to be remembered, not merely encountered
• Knowledge is sequenced and mapped deliberately and coherently

Wisdom:  encompasses ethics as well as cognition, values and purposes as well as facts and above all tries to make sound judgements that do justice to the whole ‘ecology’ of life helping our children to make wise decisions informed by deep knowledge.

Skills: are the craft and practical application that allow our children to express and explore their understanding. We want our children to be experts as scientists, linguists, musicians, artists, mathematicians, writers in the subject areas they are studying.

To enable this to happen each subject is aligned to the national curriculum and has a clear intent to plan for what we want pupils to remember, do and know at each stage in their learning. 

Excellence in who we are:

Is embedded throughout our taught curriculum and the wider experience that we give our pupils.

Community and living well together:  we know that part of character development is the ability to live well together in community and so we explicitly teach how to relate well to others.   The pursuit of excellence is a community activity because no one person has all the knowledge and gifts that are needed and so we are also a welcoming inclusive community and educate for dignity and respect. 

Hope and aspiration: As a church school, we aim to continually challenge ourselves to value, respect and support each other to become wise, generous and hopeful individuals, community members and worldwide citizens. To ensure this our curriculum reflects: diverse culture, histories and patterns of life.  We challenge social disadvantage by a relentless focus on vocabulary, cultural capital and addressing gaps in knowledge and skills.

Character development:  is a priority for us and we expect much from each individual within the school.  We know that part of character development is the ability to live well together in community and so we explicitly teach how to relate well to others. 

 

Excellence in our service with others:

Every child at St Peter's participates in 'Legacy Learning'. This is a purposeful opportunity for them to serve their school or wider local, national or international community that the curriculum may provide a context for the project. Every project is bespoke to a year group and embedded within that year’s curriculum.

Legacy Learning is underpinned by British Values and our own school values, and nurtures children’s development as responsible, respectful and compassionate global citizens. We aim to have a balance of projects so that, over their time at St Peter’s, children can leave a lasting legacy in terms of contributing to the school, local community and a global issue.

Legacy Learning provides children with the opportunity to focus on relationships and commitments participate in communities and institutions and develop the qualities of character that enable people to flourish well together.