St Catherine's Roman Catholic Primary School

St. Catherine’s School is a Voluntary Aided school serving the Catholic community of St. Catherine’s Parish. We recognise and respond to the needs of each child academically but also in their growth as an individual. We develop happy, fulfilled, well-educated and confident children in a caring, disciplined environment with our Faith as the focus of our actions. We expect, and encourage excellence in the range of activities the school undertakes and it is a privilege to see our children grow and mature during their time with us.

St Catherine’s Primary School is a Roman Catholic Primary School provided by the Diocese of Salford and is maintained by the Manchester Local Education Authority as a Voluntary Aided School. The co-ordination of admissions arrangements is undertaken by the Local Authority. The School’s Governing Body is the Admissions Authority and is responsible for taking decisions on applicationsfor admissions. For each School Year until further notice, the Governing Body has set its planned admissions number at 60.

The school’s role is to participate in the mission of the Catholic Church by providing a curriculum, including Catholic religious education and worship, which will help children to grow in their understanding of the Good News and in the practice of their faith. The school will help the children develop fully as human beings and prepare them to undertake their responsibilities as Catholics in society. The school requires all parents applying for a place here to understand and respect this ethos and its importance to the school community. This does not affect the rights of parents who are not of the Catholic faith to apply for a place here. Admissions to the school will be determined by the Governing Body. Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online via the website. If you wish to have your application considered against the school's religious criteria then you must ALSO complete the Supplementary Form which is available from the school.

At St. Catherine’s Roman Catholic Primary School, we aim to create a curriculum and environment in which all children, including those with special educational needs or disabilities [SEN], can develop physically, intellectually and emotionally, at a pace which is suited for their individual situation and where all children have equal opportunity to access the curriculum in order to realise their full potential.

As children’s first educators, parents and carers are vital partners with us in meeting the needs of all children and especially those with special educational needs or disabilities. By consulting and involving partners, children benefit from a shared understanding of their needs and have greater capacity to achieve the targets set with them. Children with medical, physical, social or behavioural needs are included within our special educational needs or disabilities provision. Special educational needs or disabilities provision is additional to good teaching, differentiation and a broad curriculum where all can succeed.

At St. Catherine’s, we recognise that the teacher in the classroom will make the biggest difference to children with SEN. High quality teaching is our priority for all children; class teachers plan teaching and learning opportunities which are differentiated to meet the needs of the children in their class. This teaching and learning will be adjusted for children with SEN to ensure that they make best progress, by setting aspirational targets for them.

Adjustments may include working in a small group supported by a teaching assistant or teacher, working one-to-one with a teaching assistant or teacher, having specialist teaching, using specialised equipment or resources. These adjustments are regularly reviewed to ensure best progress. We recognise that many children may have special educational needs or disabilities at some time in their school career, perhaps through family break up, domestic violence, illness requiring long term medical attention or social issues such as bullying, therefore some children may need additional support throughout their school career, others may need this only temporarily.

It is important that there is a consistent approach to managing behaviour throughout the school, both in terms of encouraging good behaviour and the actions taken when behaviour falls below what is acceptable.Our Behaviour Policy, when consistently and fairly applied, underpins effective learning and encourages good behaviour through a mixture of high expectations and an ethos which fosters discipline and mutual respect between pupils, and between staff and pupils. It is the responsibility of all staff within school (not just class teachers) to reinforce good behaviour and challenge unacceptable behaviour wherever it is seen, in class, at lunchtimes and playtimes, and in transition around the school. Our School Mission challenges all members of our community to ‘Be who God wants you to be and so set the world on fire.’

These words of St. Catherine of Siena underpin the work, life and ethos of our school. Behaviour is about relationships but it is also about learning. Behaviour for learning concerns developing the skills and attitudes to enable our children to become better learners. As a Roman Catholic school children are helped to live their lives as ambassadors of Christ. Childhood is a learning journey and the skills and values children gather on their journey through school help them to become happy and successful adults.

The DfE have recently 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.”At St Catherine’s, these values are reinforced regularly through our core values of love, faith, respect, perseverance, compassion and to inspire others.