St Theresa’s is a one-form entry Catholic Primary School taking Catholic children in the local area from 4 to 11 years of age. There is currently an extra class (bulge class) in Year 5 moment which is why our number on roll is 240.
We are a happy and successful school in East Finchley and have been serving the Catholic Community for 50 years. We provide the opportunity for pupils to achieve their full potential in a spiritual, academic, moral, and social climate that is based on the Gospel values. We continue to encourage and strive for the highest standards in academic achievement, social responsibility, and personal development within our Catholic learning community.
We don’t believe in work – we believe in learning! At St Theresa’s you’ll hear us talking about our learning, our home learning, and our learning logs!
Our ultimate goal is to instill in our children a love of learning and a passion for life itself. We hope that this in turn will ensure that pupils leave St Theresa’s as well-rounded individuals who are fully equipped to deal with the opportunities and challenges that they will face in the future.
Every child is encouraged to have a go, try something new, and try hard to succeed. We believe if you put the effort in, you’re moving forward. We’re doing this through mild, spicy, and hot activities. The children choose the level of activity they want to carry out. This is monitored very carefully by the class teacher and teaching assistant. At the end of the activity, the children are rewarded for effort, for producing something they have never achieved before, and more importantly, they’re praised for challenging themselves. There’s no room for “Fixed Mindset Freds” here!
Talk Partners is another element of our learning culture. We want everyone to talk about their learning. Each week children are given a talk partner. In every lesson, they will talk about what they are learning and will make decisions together. At the end of the week, the children will evaluate how effective they and their partner were. Were they good listeners? Did they focus on the task? Did they move on in their learning journey? They will then decide on what they can improve on for the next talk partner.
Assessment for learning is non-negotiable in our lessons at St Theresa’s! We want to make sure the children understand what they are learning so they can make better than expected progress. We determine this in several ways. There are no hands up in our school! We pull out lolly sticks with the children’s names on them and ask them a question. This keeps every child-focussed as they don’t know who’s going to be called out next! At the same time if a child finds it difficult to answer the question they can discuss their answer with their talk partners first. This ensures everyone is included regardless of ability!
We use individual whiteboards in all the classes so that children can show their understanding all at once. A feature of our lessons is the use of a visualizer. Every class has one so the teacher can show a piece of written learning midway through a lesson to show the class if the child is on the right track or if they need further guidance on how to meet the learning objective. This helps with peer assessment skills and is modeled in a way where children are comfortable and unafraid to have a go! We also implement a marking policy that includes green pen questions where the teacher asks the child a question to deepen their understanding. The children answer in purple so it’s clear that a dialogue is taking place in their learning journey.
Our Handwriting and Presentation Policy and Marking Policy have been included in our Policy Page for you to help your child at home with their learning.
We’re very proud of all of our children at St Theresa’s and every member of staff, governor, friend member, and parent is committed to ensuring all our children make better than expected progress in all areas this year.
