St Sebastian's Catholic Primary School

Welcome to our school. We look to our pupils to embrace the traditions of our School and live up to its mottoes. We must all work very hard to enable our children achieve their full potential in everything they do - in their work, play and spiritual development. St. Sebastian's is a happy and lively place where we want everyone to feel at home and comfortable.

The Federation of St Cuthbert’s and St Sebastian’s Catholic Primary Schools value the diverse ethnic backgrounds of all pupils and families and undertakes a variety of events and lessons to celebrate these. We are fully committed to preparing our children for life in modern Britain promoting fundamental British values.

We have found this approach to be enriching for all parties as it teaches tolerance and respect for the differences in our community and the wider world. Underpinning all of this is a range of curriculum topics which have strong links to our Core Values.

Our approach to the National Curriculum 2014 combined with our own Creative Challenge Curriculum is that we embrace and celebrate the many faces of diversity within our world, both past and present.

Our International Schools Award reflects the high profile of our appreciation of different languages and cultures. We are committed to the teaching of MFL, including the teaching of both Spanish (and in previous years Mandarin) across our schools. More recently some children undertook the role of ambassadors for our school, city and country by attending and presenting workshops at the International Head teachers Conference in Asia.

On a daily basis our schools undertake daily assemblies that uphold traditional values of empathy, respect and tolerance which are reflected within the displays within our learning environments. These British Core Values are taught within core subjects, SEAL, PSHE, RE and Collective Worship, through introduction of ‘Philosophy for Children’ sessions and more recently holistically through class teaching and on a more general level, the school undertakes daily assemblies which uphold traditional values of empathy, respect and tolerance.

We have collaborated closely, to devise a new and inspiring Creative Challenge Curriculum. This creative curriculum has been implemented with a view to improving further the quality of our teaching and learning, with a strong emphasis on challenge for all our children. We endeavour to ensure our children are motivated and inspired to want to learn by providing a broad and balanced curriculum with sound stimulating cross curricular links and skill based learning, with an emphasis on progression.

At our schools we strongly promote self-respect for all in our school irrespective of race, creed or gender. Care will be taken to ensure that resources do not present stereo-typical images, rather role models from diverse backgrounds and cultures reflecting the multi-ethnic nature of our society.

Come and See is a Catholic Primary Religious Education programme for Foundation and Key stages 1 and 2. The programme of study, written by a group of experienced diocesan advisors was introduced across the Federation in September 2012 and has been warmly received by staff and pupils. The child friendly material provided within Come and See allows children to explore the teachings of the Catholic church through the use of age appropriate resources and activities.

Each year group from Foundation 1 to year 6 have their own list of focus topics to consider throughout the academic year. The topic will coincide with the church calendar however, the depth in which the topic is explored is dependent upon the respective age of the child. For example, during Lent, whilst all children will learn about the plight of Christ, our Early Years children will consider the importance of growing and new life; Key Stage 1 children explore the effect of change and opportunities, with Key Stage 2 children considering the importance of self-discipline, sacrifice, death and new life.