Our Christian Vision

 

               Learning, Loving and Living with Jesus

 

Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord, build your lives on him

and always be thankful.  Colossians 2:7

 

 Compassion Friendship Respect Forgiveness 

Trust Thankfulness

 

 

 

Children, staff, governors and parents have high expectations of each other and themselves. We feel a sense of belonging and of contributing towards something special.

Every member of the learning community takes ownership of their own development, whilst ensuring equality of opportunity for all and being supported in fulfilling their potential.

We create and foster a genuine love of learning. We teach respect for and appreciation of the wonder of God's world around us and promote tolerance, understanding and a respect for the religious, moral and cultural values of others.

Children enjoy high-quality learning experiences in which they develop their knowledge and understanding, thinking skills, self-confidence, and social and emotional skills.

In 2020, we reviewed our mission Statement of 'Learning, Loving and living with Jesus'. It was unanimously felt by the school community that it remained a perfect fit for everything about our school and our purpose, and it continued to be our reference point in how we aimed to live out every day.

 

Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord, build your lives on him and always be thankful.  Colossians 2:7

Below we describe how we all chose this verse from the Bible to ground our vision and values. It was a very special moment indeed when we showed our pupils the final version of our chosen Biblical quote and pupils, unprompted, started pointing out that the three parts of it fit in perfectly with our Mission Statement:

 

Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord

- Learning with Jesus

 

Build your lives on him

- Living with Jesus

 

Always be thankful

- Loving with Jesus

 

 

  How we Selected our Christian Values

 

When we returned to school in March 2021 after our second full school lockdown, we felt a need to mark the intense experiences everyone had gone through by re-establishing our identity and needs through renewing our chosen Christian Values in order to exactly celebrate, reflect and support our pupils at this point in time after the unique experiences they had encountered. Therefore, to engender their feelings of belonging and ownership of our school, this time we asked only our pupils to decide together which six out of twelve Christian values they felt represented our school community best. Middle School and Upper School discussed each value, with pupils offering their ideas about how each is reflected in the gospels and how they manifest themselves through us in our school life. After this everyone in pairs discussed which six of the values they both felt best represented our school, these are the results.

 

Compassion	12
Courage	11
Forgiveness	15
Friendship	20
Generosity	11
Justice	4
Perseverance	1
Respect	20
Service	2
Thankfulness	11
Trust	15
Truthfulness	11

 

It's very pleasing to see that every one of the twelve Christian Values was voted for by our pupils as fitting for our school, however FRIENDSHIP, RESPECT, FORGIVENESS, TRUST and COMPASSION gained the most votes with Courage, Generosity, Thankfulness and Truthfulness tying to be the sixth choice. To decide which of these four should be chosen we asked Lower School to help. They chatted about which of these four Christian Values they felt most represented our school and after a good debate chose THANKFULNESS.

 

 

How we selected a Biblical quote upon which to ground our Christian vision 

 

Staff, volunteers, governors and our local church leaders were asked to suggest Biblical verses which they felt represented our school’s Christian vision. We had a great response. Miss Leyland then narrowed these down to ten possibilities:

 

Show me Your ways O Lord; Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation Psalm 25:4-5

 

Jesus said, " Love one another. As I have loved you." John 13:34

 

Be imitators of God, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Ephesians 5:1-2

 

Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord and have your lives built on him. Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught. And always be thankful. Colossians 2:7

 

Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:19

 

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

 

Encourage one another and build each other up. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

 

Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.'" Matthew 22:37-40

 

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105

 

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.  Joshua 1:9

 

These were presented at both governors’ and staff meetings where everyone discussed each quote in detail and then narrowed these down to the two which governors and staff felt provided our school with a clear theology firmly rooted in a Christian narrative:

 

Encourage one another and build each other up. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord and have your lives built on him. Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught. And always be thankful. Colossians 2:7

 

We then asked our Key Stage 2 children to respond with their feelings to both of these with the idea that one of these would be our school’s guiding light and path.

We were very proud of our pupils’ considered reactions. Here they are for you to appreciate and understand why involving our children in choosing our theological text was a brilliant thing to do.

 

Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord and have your lives built on him. Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught. And always be thankful.      Colossians 2:7

I like that it gives me faith in Lord Jesus and God I dislike that it is long I like how it tells you about what God wants you to do. I like this because it’s inspiring but is quite long but also does give a message as Paul wrote it. I also like that it’s unique. It is very like our school and how we do worships and worship God each day. I like it when it says “keep your roots in Jesus” it’s like it’s saying follow Jesus’ footsteps. Not that it’s a goal but it’s maybe a little too long for people to remember I like it because it says build our lives on God I like it because it mentions Jesus Christ. I like following Jesus. I like keep your roots in Jesus it’s like saying I want to follow Jesus. Trustful, thoughtful, mentions Jesus but it`s too long. I don`t like the word roots I like built on him. Roots in Jesus sounds wrong. It’s good that it mentions Christ the Lord I like what it says about roots I like it because it says keep your roots in Jesus, I don`t like it because it`s a little bit too big. I like that the quote said Jesus Christ the Lord and have your life built on him. I don`t like that it`s too long, I do like that it says you can still believe in Jesus even if he has died because it says keep your roots in Jesus. I think it`s good because it`s peaceful, gentle and because I believe in God I like that it mentions Christ the Lord. It’s good that it says keep your roots in Jesus I like that it says keep your roots in Jesus, but I don`t like that it is so long but it represents our school. I like that it is saying build your lives on God I like this because it is very true about what you should do in life and you should do everything it says in it. There is nothing bad about this, it tells us that good things will happen. This tells us that good things will happen, there`s nothing bad about this quote. I like it because it is a very calm quote, there’s nothing bad about it I worry that it’s too long and people won`t stop to read it. I like it because it shows you believe in Jesus. What I like about this is that it keeps your roots in Jesus, try and be nice and don`t think about ourselves, I don`t like that it is too long.

Encourage one another and build each other up.    1 Thessalonians 5:11

I like that it encourages us. I dislike it doesn’t talk about God. I like that it tells you to be strong to each other. I like that its short and shows that it’s like how we each treat each other. But it doesn’t mention anything about us being a C of E school. It doesn’t really give us anything about us and how we worship. It is a really inspirational message to one another. I like it because it says build each other up. I don`t like it because it does not mention Jesus or God our Lord. I don`t like it because its missing Lord Jesus. It`s short, not too long but it does not mention Jesus I don`t like that its short, I like encourage one another It`s a little short and it doesn`t mention Jesus but I understand it. I don`t like the words build each other up. I like it because it says encourage one another, I don`t like it because it says build each other up, it should be bring each other up. I don`t like that there is no mention of religion or God or Jesus. I don`t like that you could have it in any school because it doesn`t mention God or Jesus. I like that it encourages people. It encourages people to grow and have eternal life I don`t like that it doesn`t mention Jesus and it`s too short, but I do understand it. Its good things are that it says encouraging on another and build each other up I like this because it says encourage each other and most people are friends with one and another and most people encourage each other already. I like that this is quite short but it doesn`t mention anything about Jesus or God so I don`t think it represents the school much. I like that it says encourage one another but I don`t like that it doesn`t say anything about God. I don`t like this because it could be on any school sign because it doesn`t mention Lord Jesus in the quote. This helps people to encourage other people but it doesn`t really involve Jesus It`s helping to encourage people and be kind to other people but you can have this on any school path and it does not include God. I like that it talks about encourage. I dislike it because it is too quick. I like this because it says encourage each other.

 

After considering all our pupils’ comments, ‘Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord and have your lives built on him. Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught. And always be thankful’ was confirmed as the preferred quote. However, it was also clear that many children considered it too long. Miss Leyland and Reverend Paul then decided together how we could retain the message whilst shortening the length and from this discussion the Biblical quote to build our Christian Vision upon was born:

 

Keep your roots deep in Jesus Christ the Lord, build your lives on him

and always be thankful.  Colossians 2:7

 

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