Our values of love, honesty and respect underpin our drive in cultivating ambitious, enthusiastic and creative pupils, who confidently and enthusiastically embrace challenges and implement solutions.
Established frameworks and structures provide a plethora of opportunities for pupils to lead and have an active voice within our school community. These roles prepare pupils for life in modern Britain and beyond.
Character Development
At Holy Trinity, we acknowledge that the experiences provided for children in their primary years have a major impact on their future well-being and success. It is for this reason, we have made a whole school commitment to the teaching and development of character traits, attributes and behaviours which underpin achievement and success; endeavouring to ensure that developing ‘character’ goes hand in hand with high educational aspirations and achievement. Of course, character education is learned through a child’s total lived experience: home, the wider community and school, in partnership.
At Holy Trinity, we teach Character Education through the acronym: R.A.M.C.A.R:
Resilience, Aspiration, Morality, Cooperation, Adaptability and Respect (this also underpins our Christian Values of Love, Honesty and Respect).
Through our rich and broad curriculum, we focus on teaching pupils to be their best selves, to take pride in their work, and to be positive members of the school, and greater global communities. We want to create children who thrive on challenge, love learning, respect each other and have attributes that will ensure that they will be valued members of our society who flourish.
We also create a culture where all staff and governors support each other and the ethos of the school and most importantly where the relationships in the school between all stakeholders provide a secure foundation for skill development.
We hold a weekly Celebration Worship where we celebrate children’s classroom achievements. Each week teachers choose pupils to receive certificates for a range of attributes, both personal and academic ‘Star of the Week’; we celebrate good attendance, where the top three attending classes are announced and the winning class, proudly holds the school attendance club until the following week. Children who have attended 100% are also celebrated each term (Christmas, Easter, Summer i.e. Terms 2, 4 and 6) and are entered into a draw to win a bicycle.
Our pupils have the opportunities to build resilience through appropriately set task and question challenges; to participate in inter / intra school sports events, festivals and socials e.g. Christmas disco and the Summer Ball. Year 6 has the opportunity to attend a residential trip, and all KS2 classes attend swimming lessons with the aim of them achieving their 25m certificate before they leave Holy Trinity.
We include Kagan principles of teaching across the school which builds children’s notions of responsibility and accountability and helps all to have a voice in their own education. Through our leadership groups e.g. librarians, prefects, school council, game changes and peer mediators, children have structured opportunities to develop leadership skills, empathy and kinship.
Cultural Development
The ‘Cultural Offer’ ensures a balance of cultural learning experiences over the years a child attends our school. By the time a child leaves our school, every child will have had the opportunity to participate in a minimum of fourteen ’cultural’ experiences, in addition to other curriculum-related visits.
I believe that all children can and should benefit from receiving a wide-ranging, adventurous and creative Cultural Education. For many young people, Cultural activities form a vital part of their everyday lives. These activities are academically, physically and socially enriching, whether they take place in school or out-of-school. – Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England, 2012.
At Holy Trinity, we believe that by the age of seven years old, children should have:
- Regularly taken part in different cultural activities, such as reading books and story-telling, arts and crafts, making short animations, singing, music-making and dancing.
- They should also have been given the opportunity to visit age-appropriate events and venues, such as a theatre, cinema, concert
- Been on visits at each Key Stage to cultural institutions and venues, which might include a museum, a theatre, a gallery, a heritage site and a cinema.
- Become a regular user of a library.
- Regularly read books for pleasure, rather than only as part of their schoolwork.
- Been encouraged to use digital technology as a means of accessing and gaining a deeper understanding of great culture.
- Received the support necessary to take an interest or passion further.
- Been made aware of the other activities and resources available to them in their local area.
- Been able to join a lunchtime or after-school club to continue their interests.
- The opportunity to gain knowledge about Cultural Education subjects and also to explore their own creativity.
- The chance to create, design, devise, compose and choreograph their own work in collaboration with their classmates.
- The experience of creating work by themselves, such as writing a story, poem or play text.
- Presenting, displaying and performing to a range of audiences.
- Using arts-specific vocabulary to respond to, evaluate, explain, analyse, question and critique their own and other people’s artistic works.
- Learning about the application of the latest technology to help them to access culture.
- Been encouraged to be adventurous in their choices about cultural activities, by learning about literature, films, visual arts, crafts, heritage, music and dance that is beyond the scope of their normal everyday engagement.
- Learn about the people who have created or are creating art forms in the locality, county of Kent and beyond.
- Had the chance to learn a musical instrument.
- Regularly take part in singing.
- Taken part in dramatic performances.
- Taken part in workshops with professional artists, craftsmen, architects, musicians, archivists, curators, dancers, filmmakers, poets, authors or actors.
Careers and Enterprise Education
Holy Trinity C of E Primary School recognises the important role that school plays in enabling children to have high aspirations about their future through independent and impartial career advice. As a school, we endeavour to provide children with a range of meaningful experiences, visits and visitors to find out, and consider the world of work and provide information about future careers.
Careers education is carried out through the broader provision of the PSHE curriculum with links to English, Science, Maths and DT areas of study.
The aims of our approach to careers are:
To provide a structure for career education.
To ensure that children experience meaningful interaction with the world of work as a matter of course throughout the academic year.
To know that gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc, must not be limiting characteristics in any regard to pursuing a career of choice.
To ensure that by the time that children transfer to secondary education, they have knowledge of a range of careers and career paths.
To ensure that when children transfer to secondary school they are ready for the next stage in their education, being equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge, thus preparing them for the world of work which lies ahead.
Our careers curriculum takes into account the Gatsby Foundation research and guidance benchmarks issued from the Department of Education on Careers, which are:
Benchmark 1: A Stable Careers Programme
Benchmark 2: Learning from Career and Labour Market Information
Benchmark 3: Addressing the Needs of Each Pupil
Benchmark 4: Linking Curriculum Learning to Careers
Benchmark 5: Encounters with Employers and Employees
Benchmark 6: Experiences of Workplaces
Benchmark 7: Encounters with Further and Higher Education
Benchmark 8: Personal Guidance