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Working together to nourish and enrich the minds of our students, your children, we wish for you that this year and those that follow will be filled with many joyful events. Bill Gates once said, “The first five years have so much to do with how the next eighty turn out.” Ever mindful of the importance of this precious time in the lives of children, our pre-school aims to ensure that each of our students is individually cared for and prepared in the best possible way for their successful and happy futures. Proudly, we welcome you to book a guided tour of our school and experience with us the special journey we share with our students each day. At the Pre-School, the focus is on the holistic development of the children to prepare them for the start of formal education in Grade 1. The children’s emotional, social, physical, and intellectual development is encouraged in a loving and nurturing environment. In 1989, to meet the need for a Pre-School, together with Mr. Greg McLeod, headmistress Marianne Lichkus took on the task of building from scratch a pre-school institution. This opened in 1990 with an initial intake of 50 children and a teaching staff of three. Today, it has 130 pupils and a staff complement of seven teachers handling classes from grades 000 to grade 0. Founded in 1918, the Preparatory School aims to provide a safe schooling environment that prepares pupils with an educationally challenging and stimulating atmosphere. Our aim: to promote creative thinkers under the banner of a strong Anglican tradition with an emphasis on Christian values, leadership, and self-confidence. The Preparatory School has a fine educational reputation. Excellent results have been achieved in the Mathematics Conquesta and the SACEE Language challenge. The shared assessment has also produced outstanding results. These externally moderated exams serve as a benchmark for educational excellence. The Preparatory School has a computer center along with 18 classrooms that have been fitted with educational smart boards. This, along with our media center and technology program, allows the children to explore and expand their technical skills. Our educational, sporting, and cultural programs, backed by the quality of teaching, care, and a nurturing environment, give our pupils an unfair advantage. Music and drama are integral aspects of the curriculum, with individual music tuition being encouraged. Media and technology allow children to explore and expand their technical skills. St Dunstan’s actively takes part in all the major sporting activities, which include cricket, football, athletics, softball, swimming, tennis, badminton, netball, biathlon, archery, and hockey. The Junior Preparatory School encourages mini-tennis, mini-cricket, and T-ball. Culturally, the children participate in art, pottery, drama, chess, and wildlife. This allows the children to make informed choices as to what extra-curricular activity they would prefer to pursue when they move onto the College. The College prides itself not only on a 100% pass rate since its inception in 1995, but the outstanding results attained at the tertiary level. This is attributed to the school’s philosophy that academic excellence is about much more than merely obtaining excellent grades. It is about preparing students for an academic future that offers each student a plethora of choices wherever in the world their future takes them. St Dunstan’s College is a school dedicated to the Christian values of service, humility, and love in everything we do and at every level of our institution. Our pupils strive for excellence in all aspects of their schooling including academic, cultural, and sport. Sporting excellence is about adding balance in proportion to academia. It is about teaching life lessons, building lifelong relationships, and entering games well prepared with a positive and competitive spirit. The wide range of sports activities offered at St Dunstan’s College includes: Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Biathle, Cricket, Cross Country, Cycling, Equestrian, Football, Golf, Hockey, Netball, Rowing, Rugby, Squash, Swimming, Tennis and Waterpolo. The school offers a wide range of cultural and musical opportunities that allows our pupils to explore their unique talents. The St Dunstan’s College Educational Support Centre was established in 2007 to respond to a critical need in South African schooling identified in Dr. Steve Whitelaw’s University of Johannesburg doctoral thesis. In this thesis, Steve brought attention to the fact that up to 50% of newly-qualified teachers had left the profession within five years of having graduated. Given the shortage of candidates currently applying to become teachers, this attrition rate is of national concern. One important reason established for the decision of so many young teachers to abandon the profession was a lack of effective school-based induction of new teachers. This failure left many new teachers feeling incompetent in fulfilling the many professional challenges that are only encountered upon the assumption of a full-time teaching position. To respond to this need, the center offers a 12-week program that is focused on offering advice on issues that new teachers commonly find problematic. Teachers attend the course once a week for approximately two hours after school hours. In addition to the benefits of the course content, teachers benefit from meeting their peers and realizing that the difficulties they are experiencing are not unique to themselves, but are generally faced by new teachers! View full school

We are a busy but friendly school, with lots going on. This website aims to give you a taster of the school, as well as providing regularly updated information for both parents and pupils. The school Admission Policy can be found below, setting out the criteria for admission which is applied to every request for a place, subject to numbers. Nursery admissions are confirmed in the spring term before entry, and applications should be made to the school at any point before that. A child is eligible to start in the nursery class the September AFTER their third birthday. If there are any places, children on the waiting list who have already turned three may be admitted sooner. For a child starting at the standard school starting age, that is the September after they are four, an application must be made directly to Manchester City Council. Forest School is an inspirational process, that offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland or natural environment with trees. Forest School is a specialized learning approach that sits within and compliments the wider context of outdoor and woodland education. Here at St. Dunstan's, all staff work tirelessly to ensure that our children learn through a curriculum that is engaging, exciting, challenging, and relevant to them and their surroundings. At the core of our curriculum is a dedication to our children acquiring the key skills in reading, writing and maths, and providing them with experiences and opportunities to apply these skills. Our curriculum seeks to be creative and allow pupils' talents to shine. We present our learning in a variety of ways and look to enrich teaching and learning with trips to relevant sites in our local area and beyond, and through having visitors in our school. From September 2014, Year 1, Year 3, Year 4, and Year 5 adopted and followed programs of study set out in the National Curriculum (2014) for Mathematics, English, Science, and Foundation subjects: (Art & Design, Design Technology, Computing (formerly known as Information Technology), Music, History, Geography, and Physical Education. French is also taught in Key Stage 2. At St. Dunstan’s we believe that provision should begin with Quality First Teaching. Wherever possible children will be educated in the mainstream classroom and will have additional support and personalized education plans put into place as required. We will assess the needs of every individual child across our school and ensure that provision is suitable to their needs and ensures that they can make progress. At St Dunstan’s we regularly review the support and provision that is in place for every child. This involves regular reviews and discussions with children, parents, and staff, and external agencies to ensure that the provision we offer is of the very highest quality and standard for every child. All statutory paperwork is updated regularly and internal documentation is used regularly to ensure a smooth transition between classes and schools. At St Dunstan’s we do not believe that any medical condition should be a barrier to a child’s learning. We have a medicine policy in place and we work closely with families to ensure that we offer support and provision in a well-planned and considerate manner. We ensure that staff has up-to-date and relevant training and that all are comfortable supporting the needs of every child in their class and our whole school community. In St. Dunstan’s our children have many opportunities to give their views through pupil voice activities, which may be questionnaires or group discussions. The Elders in our Family system are voted for by other members of the Family. Children are asked to vote, particularly in class settings, on a variety of issues with the majority choice being agreed on. Children are provided with opportunities to debate important issues and are encouraged to promote themselves through letters or presentations for key roles in school such as Head Boy and Head Girl. Peers then have the opportunity to vote for the best person for each role. Pupils and parents are listened to when they have issues or suggestions and children are encouraged to think about the choices they make about behavior and the consequences of their choices. Staff is encouraged to take part in discussions about improvements to the school in staff meetings and Leadership and Key Phase meetings. Democratic ideas are explored in subjects such as History and Philosophy and visits with key people such as PCSOs and local councilors are encouraged. All children have access to an appropriate curriculum, differentiated to meet their needs. This enables them to learn to develop the necessary skills to build self-esteem, respect others, defend those in need, resolve conflict without resorting to violence, question, and challenge, and make informed choices in later life. Children and young people are encouraged to express and discuss their ideas, thoughts, and feelings through a variety of activities and have access to a range of cultural opportunities which promote the fundamental British values of tolerance, respect, and empathy for others. There is access to a range of extracurricular activities, information, and materials from a diversity of sources which not only promotes these values but supports the social, spiritual, moral well-being, and physical and mental health of the pupils. View full school

St Dunstan’s College is a school community that is grounded in the vibrancy of its South London setting. We celebrate the opportunities afforded to us by being located in such a diverse environment, allowing for all manner of views, opinions, and styles – what better foundation to an exceptional education. We embellish the values embodied by St Dunstan, using the life of that great polymath to guide our educational narrative. We encourage creativity and innovation and we want our pupils to embrace the richness of a broad education, whilst not forsaking the importance of rigor and depth of achievement. We know coeducation to be the right platform for developing the interpersonal skills necessary to succeed in the modern world. The importance we place on nurturing individuality and the manageable size of our school is such that we ensure pupils do not get lost, but rather thrive in their way. The comfort provided by our rigorous approach to pastoral care enables our pupils to take risks, ask difficult questions of themselves and others, and above all else develop the humility, confidence, and tenacity needed to find success in all aspects of life beyond school. As a Nursery to Year 13 College, we pride ourselves on genuinely knowing the children under our care, and we hope that our families will feel an important part of this community. An ethos of consideration and tolerance towards others pervades the college pupils to support each other, respect their teachers, and value and take pride in their school community. The charity principally fulfills this mission through running a co-educational, independent school for 3 to 18-year-olds in Catford. Of all the components of the school’s identity that can be traced back to its opening in 1888, the College motto - album exorna - is the one element that remains completely unchanged. Translating as ‘Adorn the White’, this phrase is connected to the white shield that serves as three-quarters of the school’s crest. The white is the blank canvas onto which will be adorned the as yet unwritten story of each St. Dunstan’s pupil each journey through school and life beyond. We believe that the principles underpinning the narrative of our motto are reflected in the values we foster in our young people and embed in our school community and culture today. We strive for a school of individuals who dare to be who they are, the Creativity to develop new ideas and shape their futures, the Confidence to try, succeed and respond positively to failures, the Compassion to understand and appreciate others and the wider world, and the Curiosity always to want to discover more. To promote this culture, we have a clear educational vision that drives our development as a school. At St Dunstan’s College we seek to:‘Inspire, nurture and challenge young people to develop the knowledge, skills, and interests that shape their educational journey, character, and aspirations.’ View full school

We are a very successful and forward-looking school, seeking all the time to improve and progress. We are very proud to be a Church of England school and we value our strong links with both the Southwark Diocese and our parish church, St Dunstan’s Cheam. We aim to provide a happy, inclusive, secure, and stimulating learning environment where Christian values are embraced by all, no matter what their faith background. Working together, we will nurture individuality, provide challenge, develop self-esteem and promote respect for each other, enabling the children to grow into confident, responsible, and compassionate young people with high aspirations for the future. Our School fosters a Christian ethos and provides a high quality of care and education for every member of the school community. Christian values are promoted through the whole curriculum. We aim to motivate everyone to engage fully in the broad range of educational opportunities provided to develop their potential. We encourage all our children to achieve high standards and to grow as happy, confident, compassionate, independent young people who show respect for others, have a desire to learn, and who are eager to make positive and caring contributions to the wider community, its people and environment. The DfE have reinforced the need "to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all 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." The Church has always taken a lead in education and in 1826 it founded, in Malden Road, a school to educate the children of the Parish of Cheam Village and Cuddington. In 1863, St Dunstan's Church started an infants' school in a cottage on the edge of Nonsuch Park, on the present Nonsuch High School site. In 1869 the infants moved to the Parochial Rooms in Broadway. After a couple of years, while the boys transferred to a junior school, the older girls were retained with the infants, and the school became known as the Cheam and Cuddington Girls’ and Infants’ School. The Malden Road School became known as Cheam Junior Boys' School. The girls and infants stayed in the Parochial Rooms until 1907 when they moved to a new building in Jubilee Road. In 1943 boys were allowed to stay on from the age of seven years to make it a mixed five to eleven primary school. The name St Dunstan's School was adopted in the 1950s. The school was amalgamated with Cheam Junior Boys in 1989 and renamed St Dunstan's, Cheam, School. Construction of the new larger two-form entry building was started on the last day of October 1991. The foundation stone was laid by the Bishop of Southwark in the following February and the building was completed in November 1992. The building was occupied in January 1993. St Dunstan's Church and friends of the school raised money for the stained glass window that has been installed in the Entrance Hall. The window shows Christ as Wisdom with Dunstan at His feet and is based on a mid-10th-century drawing believed to be from the hand of Dunstan when he was Abbot of Glastonbury. St Dunstan’s, Cheam, Church of England Primary School has a very strong Christian ethos which is at the heart of everything that we do and provides a high quality of care and education for every member of our school community. Christian values are promoted through the whole curriculum and we aim to motivate everyone to engage fully in the broad range of educational opportunities provided to develop their potential. We welcome applications from all members of the community. Many parents apply to this school because of its strong Christian ethos and we ask all parents to support our ethos and respect its importance to our school community. View full school