St Paul's is over 180 years old. Built-in 1834 on the grounds of an existing school, St Paul's is only 1 year younger than our parent church. As with all schools of that time, St Paul's was built for the community of Mill Hill. In our 180 years, we have grown from a small 2 class school to a full 7 class primary. In September 2014 added to this with the introduction of our sister school, Millbrook Park Church of England Primary School. When complete both schools will be serving over 900 pupils a far cry from our humble Georgian origins.
St Paul's reputation has come to represent high standards coupled with great enthusiasm and joy. We have a wonderful and caring community of children who work hard and are well supported.
As a Church of England school, we value and celebrate the diverse heritages of everybody at St Paul's. Alongside this, we value and celebrate being part of Britain. In general terms, this means that we celebrate traditions, such as customs in the year for example, Harvest festival during the autumn term, and what could be more British than a trip to a pantomime around Christmas time! We also value and celebrate national events. Of course, as a Church school, we take a full and active part in the Christian calendar of celebrations across the year. We also acknowledge the key religious festivals of other faiths represented in Britain today.
St Paul's Primary School aims to be responsive to all aspects of diversity and to increase the learning and participation of all pupils within the school and its locality. We are developing inclusive values which are shared between all staff, pupils, governors, parents/carers, and the wider community, in a secure, accepting, collaborative and stimulating environment. Everyone is valued and diversity is seen as a rich resource to enhance and support the learning of all.
This inclusive culture is reflected in all school policies and practices. We ensure that classroom and extra-curricular activities encourage the participation of all pupils, drawing on their knowledge and experience outside school. Teaching and support are integrated, enabling all pupils to overcome barriers to learning and participate fully in school life.
Inclusion will be achieved through analysis and assessment of children’s needs, by monitoring the quality of teaching and the standards of pupils’ achievements, and by setting targets for improvement. Learning for all children is given equal priority and available resources are used to maximum effect.
All children, including those who have been identified as more able/gifted and talented, will be given opportunities within lessons and through extracurricular activities to use and develop their gifts and talents.
At St Paul’s we seek to improve learning through opportunities, challenge, and enjoyment. We believe strongly that each hour of each day is an opportunity for a child to learn something new or master a skill. Learning is a process with a start point and from that any number of endpoints, depending on what a child is learning and what stage of learning they are at. Where learning is at its strongest a child is either developing or mastering new knowledge. Our drive, as a school, is to identify, support, and challenge children at all stages of their learning to maximize their potentials.
We have a range of strategies across the school to meet the demands of the National Curriculum and our eager learners. Rather than adopting a fragmented approach to learning, where individual subjects are taught separately, we have adopted an approach that seeks to bridge one subject with another allowing the children to become immersed within their learning. We believe that this is how our children learn best at St Paul’s and have the best opportunity to translate one skill from one subject to another resulting in the potential for higher success understanding. As a result, our key learning strategies have been developed to support one another to maximize the potential of crossing the whole curriculum.
