St Peter's London Docks CofE Primary School

As a Church of England School we seek to provide a Christian education for the children of the parish of St. Peter’s London Docks and for those who elect to come to our school. Children are presented with the teachings of the Christian faith as the revelation of God’s truth and are encouraged to grow in that faith, respecting the beliefs and cultures of others.

Education is seen as being concerned with excellence in learning and for the spiritual and social growth of children, developing the individual potential of each child to the fullest. Every day at St Peter’s Primary School, the staff & governors work to make sure that St Peter’s children:

• Have respect for themselves and others.
• Are enthusiastic, enquiring learners.
• Know what it feels like to have done their best and achieve.
• Understand the value of prayer and its place in their lives.
• Understand the importance of goodness, honesty, and hard work.
• Have a clear set of values; understanding their rights and responsibilities.
• Have the skills and opportunity to work collaboratively.
• Have shared friendship & learned how to get along well with other people.
• Have happy memories of their time with us.
• Have aspirations to embrace every opportunity to further their education, knowledge, skills and interests, throughout their live.

At St Peter’s lots of learning takes place in cross-curricular lessons based on a theme. Each term every class studies a different theme, some are science based, some are historical and others have a geographical bias.Over the course of a year pupils will experience one of each. The themes are exciting and involve pupils sharing their prior learning in order for teachers to plan activities which match children’s needs and interests.

Our literacy work is often based around ‘Dramatic Improvement in Writing’ themes which feed back into our creative curriculum topic. For example, our year one children read ‘Whatever Next!’ and write about baby Bear’s adventures as part of their ‘To Infinity and Beyond!’ space theme. Literacy learning focuses around children rehearsing their ideas orally through drama and speaking and listening activities in order to fully engage children in the writing process and develop their technical and creative writing skills.

At St Peter’s we view ‘learning beyond the classroom’ as an essential part of our children’s learning and development. We realise the importance of our children making links between what they have learnt in school and their local community and beyond. As such, we actively build opportunities for regular trips and visits to museums, galleries, theatres and places of interest. We think carefully about providing our children with ‘tasters’ for a wide range of culturally enriching experiences which include: our year 6 children annually attending ballet/opera at the Royal Opera house, our KS2 children visiting a West End production each year and taking children to eat together at a restaurant.

At St Peter’s we are a ‘Sing Up’ school as we value the shared experience that collective singing brings to our children and developing their sense of community. We seek out opportunities for our children, and our school choir, to perform to an audience as well as working in partnership with other local schools through projects such as ‘Tower Voices.’ Our Music coordinator teaches music sessions linked to classes’ creative curriculum themes.In addition, our lower Key stage two classes learn to play the guitar, whilst our upper key stage two classes develop their percussion skills through learning to play the Glockenspiel. The instrumental tuition is provided by high quality professionals from the Tower Hamlets Arts and Music Education Service (THAMES). This includes opportunities for pupils learn saxophone, keyboards, violins and guitars after school.

As a school with ‘Advanced Healthy Schools’ status, we focus on children’s personal, health, social and emotional development. Our PSHE lessons are focused around key aspects of developing a “whole child”, British values and our school values. Every class takes part in regular circle time sessions and our values also feature regularly in whole school assemblies.

The staff are proud that inclusion is at the heart of all our practice. We believe that an inclusive school is a successful, happy school. We aim to provide an environment that is a safe, respectful and fun place for every pupil to learn. By staff ‘living’ the schools vision and values we ensure that all pupils are included in all aspects of learning and school life. Our values also inform how we work with parents and each other as a staff team.