It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the school through this brochure! I hope that this will give you a picture of life at St Michael’s and all the wonderful opportunities your child will experience during their time here. We are proud of our high standards and highly motivated children. St Michael’s is a forward thinking, values based school and is a very special place to be. Therefore we encourage you to visit the school and see for yourself what makes St Michael’s so unique. Our school motto is “Learning together; making a difference” and this sums up our vision for a life long learning journey that our children start with us and continue for the rest of their lives. Our aim is to enable our children through high quality teaching and experiences to be happy successful learners who make a positive contribution to society throughout their lives. We look forward to developing a successful partnership with you to ensure that your child achieves their full potential. We look forward to meeting you. Helen Newell Executive Headteacher
Our vision is that we foster a love of learning that stays with our children for the rest of their lives. We aim for happy, successful young people who are able to make a worthwhile and positive contribution to the community as children, and later, as adults. We do this through: • enabling all children to achieve personal highest standards and to make good progress during their time at St. Michael’s. • recognising the value of each child as an individual, nurturing the intellectual, creative, emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of their personality.
• providing children with teaching of high quality. • providing a broad and balanced curriculum and a wide range of extra - curricular activities. • promoting Christian values and a love of God, while appreciating that we serve a multicultural society. • fostering a caring, safe and supportive environment in which pupils understand what is expected of them to enable them to become responsible citizens in the school and wider community. • continuing our effective partnership with parents and the wider community.
We are proud of our creative curriculum which enables our children to learn in a purposeful and meaningful way. We strive to make learning irresistible and exciting and draw upon real life scenarios and problems to help the children see how learning fits into everyday situations. School subjects are often linked together in themes or topics, visitors are brought in, children go out on many trips and are encouraged to be independent in the learning. All children learn a musical instrument, work with children from other classes and year groups, use a wide range of technology like laptops, iPads, digital cameras and interactive whiteboards.
We offer a wide range of clubs and extra curricular activities, such as Breakfast Club, Homework Club, Gardening, street dancing, a range of sports, literacy, maths, dance, ICT and zumba. Most children enjoy taking part in at least one club a week, if not more! We celebrate children’s talents and skills which they may have developed outside of school and aim to continue to nurture these interests in school. We are interested to know which activities children want and aim to provide as many opportunities as possible to develop favourite pastimes and introduce them to new ones. We also have comprehensive instrumental music tuition provision.
We are a healthy school so we encourage healthy life styles and healthy eating. This will happen through the curriculum, trying foods during topic work, visiting farms or experiencing new sports and activities. We aim to widen the children’s tastes by introducing them to a range of tastes, opportunities and experiences. We cook all our own food on site and run our own kitchens so we are able to respond quickly to the needs of our children as well as offer healthy nutritious meals. We ensure that the meals are appealing to the children and regularly have “lunch with your child” days so that parents can sample
the menus and have special time with their child. If children chose to have a packed lunch we ask that parents provide a healthy balanced packed lunch. We are happy to provide further guidance with this. Lots of clubs over lunchtime are provided to meet all children’s needs. We love our outdoor space, huge field, allotment, Forest School area and lovely grounds. We make sure that we use our outdoor space to extend learning whenever we can.
Our overall aim is that every child should achieve his or her potential from whatever their starting point. We recognise that each child is an individual and we make sure that the experiences each child is given while they are with us is underpinned by exceptional care, guidance and support. Making good progress and developing a love of learning is key for the rest of their lives. We have an inclusive approach to meeting all needs whether your child has Special Educational Needs (SEN) or is gifted or talented (G&T) in certain areas. We monitor progress carefully and involve parents fully in their child’s learning plan, which then informs our provision. St Michael’s has an excellent reputation for supporting parents to enable them to help their child achieve even more in school. Our Pupil Support Services Team is strong and will provide early help to support with all matters relating to attendance, working with outside agencies, family issues and children’s emotional and behaviour support. Our activities and support groups for parents in our special Community Room are open to all.
Priority admission is afforded to the children from our Partnership School, Clover Hill Infant and Nursery. Admissions into the school at other times is through the Local Authority but parents are welcome to visit the school for an informal look around by appointment. We have very close links with the infant schools and transition arrangements are smooth and well planned to ensure that the children continue to be successful at St Michael’s.
Astley Road, Chapel Break, Bowthorpe, Norwich, Norfolk NR5 9LA Telephone: 01603 745812 Fax: 01603 748315 Email: office@st-michaelsjunior.norfolk.sch.uk www.stmichaelsjuniorschool.co.uk
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