St Anselm’s Catholic School is set within an oasis of calm, amidst the busy streets of Tooting. We are a small, nurturing school that focuses on the development of the whole child. We expect high standards of work and behavior from all members of our school community and we measure success in terms of the impact we have on our pupils’ academic, personal, and spiritual development and our links to the wider community. We believe that good communication between home and school is a key aspect of successful learning. As a Catholic school, we focus on supporting the children to find out who they are in terms of who God made them to be and to instill a sense of belonging through their faith. Our school motto, ‘We are called to serve, to walk humbly with God’, helps the children to focus on the needs of others and to build a caring and loving community within the school. The pupils are immensely proud of their school and they leave here ready for the challenges that lie ahead.
Our Mission Statement: As a Catholic school and community, we share a common vision where Christ is at the center of all our work. Our school policies embody principles of love, service, respect, and reconciliation. We strive to recognize the dignity of each member of our school community and to nurture and challenge our pupils to be lifelong learners.
Our Statement on Equality: At St Anselm’s School, we are committed to equality for all our pupils and employees. We welcome our duty under the Equality Act 2010 to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations. All aspects of our school life are centered on our School Mission Statement. Here are some of the ways we achieve this:
- Together with the school’s governing body, the Senior Leadership Team has the responsibility for ensuring equality for all members of our school community.
- We have clear procedures for dealing with prejudice and bullying incidents.
- We regularly use pupil data to gather information on pupil ethnicity and gender.
- We use assessment data to ascertain whether there are any significant differences in attainment between girls and boys and between pupils of different ethnic backgrounds. We review pupil support to meet all pupils' needs.
- We regularly review our statement on equality.
The school has designed its curriculum to meet current government requirements with English, Maths, Science, and ICT as the core subjects and History, Geography, PE, Art & Design, Music and Design & Technology as the foundation subjects. In addition, provision is made for Religious Education for all pupils at this school following its fundamental Catholic ethos, legal foundation, and mission statement.
Curriculum subjects are taught largely within class groups with support and extension for pupils identified through target setting and teacher assessment. The school's governing body annually agrees on the level of staff required to deliver the curriculum and to match financial resources. This is based on the needs of pupils within each year group and also the short and long-term targets set in the annual School Development Plan.
The new curriculum is being taught in all year groups but assessments in Year 2 and 6 are still being done against National Curriculum levels. All teachers have attended Wandsworth courses on assessment in English and Maths and these continue in the current year providing opportunities to liaise with colleagues from other schools, comparing and moderating work as we all become more confident assessing the New Curriculum objectives. We are in a transitional stage this year while we adapt to the expectations of, and changes in the content of the New Curriculum, and assessment is a key part of the school development plan. We have previously used Classroom Monitor to track formative assessment in Maths, English, and Science and this bank of information has been transferred to new stages which we are now using to track the New Curriculum objectives. This gives us an indication of where the children are within Stages (Stage 5 is for Year 5). It indicates whether a child is beginning, developing, secure, or exceeding within the stage. Some problems with this need further discussion within the school and with our Wandsworth colleagues. For example, the statements for reading and writing sometimes are the same for two consecutive year groups and fail to show progression.
