School Vision Statement
With guidance from our Lancashire County Council School Advisor and in consultation with pupils and a working party of parents, governors and staff, we developed our Vision Statement in September 2019:
Learning together, rooted in God, pupils at St Lawrence Church of England Primary School are easy to distinguish by the personal qualities they present. They are happy, confident, articulate children with a love of learning and a sense of service, who recognise and celebrate their own individuality and that of other members of our community. They are generous, kind and welcoming; they are forgiving and understand justice. With God by their side, they face the world with resilience, integrity and joy.
Our Vision Statement represents our school vision and the aspirations we have for our children. The words in bold are our key values. These values form the basis of all we do in school and help our children to be responsible and considerate members of society.
Learning Together, Rooted in God
This is taken from John 15: Verse 5 – Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain rooted in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”
How did we arrive at these words to reflect our vision and practice?
When the working party met, our starting point was to explore the key values we would like our children to have when they leave St. Lawrence's and embark on their high school journey. The Deputy Headteacher from Broughton High School, who was also one of our school governors, told us that past pupils of St. Lawrence Church of England Primary School stand out from the rest. They are confident, articulate and caring; they enjoy school and make the most of all it has to offer. This formed the basis of our vision and these qualities (or values) were added to, as we brainstormed the values that would help our pupils to achieve their goals and make a postivie contribution to society. This created a very lengthy initial list that was then whittled down to a more manageable list to work with. After a good deal of drafting, editing and redrafting, we eventually had a vision that reflected our aims and resonated with the high standing the school and its pupils hold in the local community.
As a Church of England primary school, shouldn't all of our values be distinctly Christian?
There was a good deal of discussion around this point. However, we are passionate about the vision we have created and the values it encapsulates. It clearly demonstrates our work in school and the vision we have for its development. The values we have selected do include four distinctly Christian values (service, joy, generosity and forgiveness) and these have become our Core Values. We have paired the other values with distinctly Christian values for exploration during worship. For example integrity, which is not a Christian value, is paired with truthfulness.
We have also linked our school values to stories from the Old and New Testaments. Rooting our values in scripture helps the children to understand how we are able to live our lives in the way that Jesus has taught us. We also use worship time to explore modern day examples of each value so that children can see how these are relevant to our lives today.
Theological Underpinning
The file below explores the theology of John 15: Verse 1 from which we have taken our Christian tag-line – Learning Together, Rooted in God.
