What does it mean to be a Church of England School?

Just like all good schools, we have high aspirations for our children and we are designing our curriculum to equip them to learn effectively and to become the best they can be.  

Here at St Mark’s, your child will be nurtured and valued as a unique member of our school family through our distinctive Vision and Values that are rooted in Christian teaching. We also recognise that our Vision and Values are shared across all belief systems; as we ‘Grow Together’, we value families from all faiths and of none and recognise and celebrate the inherent worth of each individual.

Church School Distinctiveness is rigorously inspected every 5 years under the Statutory Inspection for Anglican and Methodist Schools Evaluation Schedule (otherwise known as a SIAMS Inspection).

The Church of England Vision for Education sets out four basic elements that run through the whole approach, promoted in each Church School.  The Vision is for schools to:

• Educate for Wisdom, Knowledge and Skills: enabling discipline, confidence and delight in seeking wisdom and knowledge, developing talents in all areas of life
• Educate for Hope and Aspiration: coping wisely when things go wrong, opening horizons and guiding people into ways of fulfilling them
• Educate for Community and Living Well Together: a core focus on relationships, participation in communities and the qualities of character that enable people to flourish together
• Educate for Dignity and Respect: the basic principle of response and preciousness of each person, treating each person as a unique individual of inherent worth

We seek to demonstrate these strands in all aspects of school life through showing our core FACE Values (see below) both in and out of the classroom. During our daily Class / Collective Worship sessions we also explore ways of showing a range of other shared values in our everyday lives, such as Courage, Thankfulness, Friendship, Trust, Generosity, Respect and Hope.

Our FACE Values (Forgiveness, Aspire, Compassion and Engage) are the 4 Core Values at the heartbeat of St. Mark’s. We demonstrate these by showing Forgiveness in our relationships, Aspiration in our learning, acting with Compassion towards others and Engaging with each opportunity to bring the best out of each other.

These values are 'the FACE of St Mark's'. They inform how we learn, treat each other and develop as individuals.

By law, our responsibilities as a Church of England school are:

• Engage meaningfully in a real act of Christian worship every day
• Offer a school life that incorporates the values of the Christian faith
• Ensure that Religious Education is given at least 5% of school time and that the quality of RE and Collective Worship are a particular concern of the Headteacher and Governors
• Observe the major Christian festivals and ensure that those with other faiths are able and encouraged to mark their major festivals with integrity
• Maintain and develop an active and affirming relationship with a parish church

Our FACE values are displayed like this centrally in the hall. Each symbol, designed by the children, represents the meaning behind each value, To read more able this, please see the Collective Worship tab.