Our Catholic Education System provides a unique service to Catholic parents by helping us to foster in our children a deep knowledge and love of the Faith. At St. Ambrose Primary School we seek to work in partnership with you to achieve this aim and at the same time provide a challenging and supportive curriculum that meets the needs of all pupils. This partnership will enable our pupils to realize their full potential and value as individuals in a Catholic environment. We are keen to develop existing links between school, parish, and yourselves.
The mission statement was developed by the whole school community in April. It is widely recognized that the educational outcomes and future life chances of children can be significantly impacted upon by periods of absence. The Governors of this School wish to encourage parents to ensure their child attends school every day.
The Governing Body has ten members currently, all coming from a diverse background in Education, IT, and Finance. We are all volunteers and are appointed to assist in the strategic direction of the school. The members include the Chair, the Vice-Chair, parent governors, foundation governors, school staff, and the Headteacher. The Governors do not get involved in the day to day running of the school or in how the school is managed, but are there as a support to the Head Teacher and senior leaders in promoting high standards of education, welfare, and spiritual wellbeing of all our pupils.
We work as a team alongside the Head Teacher and senior leaders to promote and support the success of the school. We act as a “Critical Friend” helping to ensure high standards are maintained and that all of our children remain happy and healthy whilst making outstanding educational progress. The Governors meet regularly in the form of two committees focussing on the curriculum, school development, admissions, finance, safeguarding, personnel, and premises. The full Governing Body meets each term to discuss outstanding issues from the committees and to receive feedback from the Head Teacher and senior leaders regarding the progress of the school.
In addition to this, individual Governors are linked with various aspects of the work of the school and meet periodically with school staff to monitor and promote progress towards targets. Whenever possible, Governors support staff and pupils by attending the many events that take place during the year. Staff is always here to listen to their ideas and allow them to express themselves. Our UNICEF ambassadors have now been chosen in Year 5 and 6 and are in the process of electing their Year 3 and 4 Junior Ambassadors.
Having listened to our Year 1 and 2 children at our school, they asked if someone could help them when in church as some have never been to a mass in school before. Our Year 6 children duly obliged and the Church Buddy system was created. Year 5 and 6 take the Year 1 and 2 children over to the church, sit next to them, and help them with the responses we have to learn in mass. What fantastic role models.
The IPC is one of the fastest-growing curriculum choices in the world today, with over 1,900 schools in over 90 different countries. It is a comprehensive curriculum for 5-12-year-olds, made up of over 100 exciting, engaging, and globally relevant thematic units of learning, which are designed around a clear process of the learning and with specific learning goals for subject, personal and international learning.
Nothing is more important to us than the safety and welfare of our pupils. We take rigorous steps to ensure that children stay safe and do not come to any harm. We work closely with parents/carers and a range of professional external agencies to secure this.
At St. Ambrose School we promote ‘British Values’ through our spiritual, moral, social, and cultural education which permeates through the school’s curriculum and supports the development of the ‘whole child. We recognize that such development is most successful when those values and attitudes are promoted by all the staff and provide a model of behavior for our pupils.
The DfE have recently reinforced the need, "to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all the schools to promote the fundamental British Values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs."
