Ethos, Vision & Values

Our ethos at Warstones Primary School is to nurture and support every child fully as they grow, so that when they leave us, they are equipped with the values and skills they need to continue their life's journey, in school and in the community around them.


We aim to encourage and empower our children with other seven key values which we believe to be important in our citizens of the future. These are the values the staff and Governors felt were important for us to develop in our school, taking into account our wider community. 

Our School Values

Our school values can be seen not only in individual events held, but also throughout our school curriculum including our teaching and learning approaches throughout our year groups. 

Independence 

We encourage our children to be as independent as possible, both in their work and beyond. During lessons, we often allow the children to decide their own level of challenge and allow them to constantly change this level depending on how they feel their learning is going. Where possible, we allow children to set out their work in a style of their choosing and often work with them to make good choices during group work. On the playground, we encourage our children to solve any conflict themselves, facilitated by a member of staff. 

 

Community

We aim to involve our wider community in our school as much as possible. Our families are invited to our Well Done assemblies each week to celebrate the wonderful achievements of our children. We also gather for performances such as nativities, both at school and at church, dance celebrations, Rocksteady shows and class assemblies. 

We serve our community in as many ways as possible. We offer a 'Food Share' initiative where food donations from our local community are bought into school from our families and businesses from around the city. Our families can then come along and take as much or as little as they need using our 'Families at the Front' door. In addition to this, we also have our 'Take what you need' table which is set up on occasions throughout the year. This is where fresh produce from our school garden is placed out for families to take and enjoy at home. 

Life Skills

Our aim at Warstones is to give our children the knowledge and skills that they need to help benefit them in the future. Our school curriculum allows for children to pick up these life skills as they move through the school.

British Sign Language is a skill that is learnt throughout the whole school with all children taking an active part in learning key signs to help communicate with our children with hearing impairment. Alongside this, we teach children deaf awareness, showing how best to communicate with deaf people, both in and around our school, and in the wider community. 

Our PE curriculum is designed to teach the life skill of swimming to our children in Year 5, emphasising water safety. Idris Caldora, our linked chef, comes into school and delivers cooking sessions with the children, giving them the opportunity to learn skills that will help them throughout their lives. We ensure that we help our children to understand the importance of staying safe online and how cyber bullying is something that should never take place. Our new house point system teaches our more mature learners about saving and spending as they get the chance to spend their house points on smaller prizes, or save up for larger treats. 

 

Health and Wellbeing

Looking out for our children's health and wellbeing is at the forefront of what we do at Warstones. Through our continued work in our school garden, children learn how fresh fruit and vegetables are grown and how to look after them. They also learn the benefits of eating healthily not only through the produce grown, but also through our school curriculum. Our younger children benefit from being offered a piece of fruit as a snack during the day, whilst children in Key Stage Two are encouraged to bring in their own healthy choice of snack. Our school dinner suppliers, Shires, work hard to offer a balanced menu with healthy choices mixed in with the occasional treat. 

We understand the need to support any child who may be struggling with their mental health, and the direct correlation that this has on their learning. Through our PSHE curriculum, we teach children the skills that they may need to support their own mental wellbeing and how to regulate their emotions in a positive way. Our PSHE curriculum is constantly being adapted to meet the needs of the learners, so to have the greatest impact possible. Each term we hold a wellbeing day where the focus of the entire day is supporting children with their mental health and wellbeing and showing children the strategies that they may be able to use independently in the future. In each classroom there is a worry box where children are encouraged to jot down any worries that they may have, allowing the staff to help them if needed either one to one or in regular therapy groups that are held. During assemblies, we run campaigns to raise awareness of a variety of issues and encourage 'circle time' sessions where children can voice any opinions or concerns. For our Year 6 children, we offer lots of support during throughout the year, including wellbeing interventions and Lego therapy to help with the stresses of assessments and secondary transition. 

Knowledge

Throughout the school we have developed a curriculum based around hand-picked Cornerstones topics, incorporating topics that appeal to our children and our locality, allowing them to gain key knowledge and skills as they move through the school. Our curriculum ensures clear progression and statutory coverage within each subject, while enthusing our children, building on their cultural capital and sheer enjoyment of learning. In each lesson, we ensure that prior knowledge is used as the springboard for any future learning. Our knowledge rich curriculum is supported with themed visits, residentials, experience days, live performances, author and poet visits, chef visits and more. Along with enthusing our children, these experiences help them to acquire knowledge in a variety of ways.

Culture

Throughout the school, we offer our children many cultural experiences that accompany our curriculum, allowing for engaging cultural capital to be built upon. Regular music sessions for the children are held from both the Wolverhampton Music School and 'Rocksteady', where the children are able to rehearse and perform as part of their very own rock band. We aim to offer our children cultural experiences such as author visits into school and seeing them at theatres (David Baddiel being a particular highlight for the children), taking part in the Grand Theatre Writing Project, celebrating International Language Day across the school each year and having inspirational talks from the 'Wolves Foundation'. Our regular choir sessions allow children to rehearse and perform songs together and even perform in front of thousands of people at Young Voices each year. In addition to this, we also take part in 'Take One Picture' week where a particular piece of artwork is studied and drives the learning through the whole curriculum for the week. 

We are very proud of our multi-cultural community setting and our positive and welcoming ethos reflects this. Through our daily school life, we encourage our children to embrace the many faiths and cultural backgrounds of their peers, whether this be through assemblies, our curriculum or the inspirational characters that we study. In our library areas we have ensured that their are texts for the children to read that reflect all areas of life, from race to refugees, from sexuality to equality. Each year, we work hard to recognise and celebrate black history month, ensuring that we have positive discussions with our children about the importance of this event. 

 

 

British Values

  • Our children from Year 1 to Year 6 have the opportunity to have their voices heard through our school council, where they are able to raise concerns and suggestions to their class councilors that will then be discussed in meetings with the rest of the council. In addition to this, we also try offer opportunities throughout school life where democracy is encouraged, such as choosing the reward activity for Golden Time and activities to take part in during wellbeing days.

  • The importance of laws, from those that govern the class, the school and the country, are consistently reinforced throughout each day, as well as when dealing with behavioural issues that may occur. As children mature, we encourage them to take more responsibility with behavioural issues and will often ask them what they believe would be a suitable sanction for their actions. We set up regular visits from authorities such as the fire service to teach children the importance of laws and have also had a member of our local community in to talk about the consequences of breaking the law and the impact that it had on his life

  • Within school, our children are actively encouraged to make choices, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. As a school we educate and provide boundaries for young pupils to make choices safety, through the provision of safe environment and empowering education. Pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and advise how to exercise these safely, for example through our E-Safety and PHSE lessons. Whether it be through choice of challenge, of how they record, of participation in our numerous extra-curricular clubs and opportunities, pupils are given the freedom to make choices.

  • A big part of our school ethos is respect, as seen in the 'Be Respectful' section of our 3 B's behaviour reminders. This strand, along with the other 'B's', are mentioned both formally and informally each day and reminders are up throughout the school. In addition, we ensure that as adults, we model respect towards our children, ensuring that incidents and conflict are dealt with in a calm and respectful way, allowing children to voice their perspective.

  • Here at Warstones, we are proud to promote and celebrate our different backgrounds and beliefs. Through the use of our key stage and class assemblies, we highlight and teach about many different faiths and the celebrations that people enjoy throughout the year. We often invite our children to share their experiences of faith with their peers, highlighting the importance of faith in their lives, encouraging our children to be curious learners and to ask polite and respectful questions. Our RE curriculum teaches children about the many different faiths around the world and how, even if we do not have a specific faith, we must still show high levels of respect and understanding.