St Paul’s will always be a loving school where children are safe, motivated to learn by an inspirational curriculum and where standards are high.

Christian Values will be implicit and explicit and will guide policy and practice in every facet of the school’s daily life, from class time to lunchtime to home time.

Our School Vision:

For with you is the Fountain of life; in your light we see light. (Psalm 36 vs 9)

Inspired by God's love for us, we illuminate the goodness in others, we care for and protect His children and reach out to help other flourish in their journey to the fullness of life.

Spirituality

At St Paul's we encourage and nurture a shared understanding of spirituality through our love for self, others, beauty and beyond. 

Children are guided to develop their spiritual development and well being through Collective Worship, RE lessons and Curriculum wide spiritual reflection. 

We explore a different Christian Value every half-term, following a three-year rolling programme.

Education for Life in All its Fullness

In 2016, The church of England published a document entitled:

Church of England Vision for Education 

Deeply Christian, Serving the Common Good 

Section four has the title: ‘Educating for life in all its fullness’. This section resonates strongly with our own ethos and values. The document says:

A core desire that we have found expressed in many ways is for ‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). It is about ‘educating the whole person’, what the 1988 Education Reform Act (in a programmatic statement that remains in force and is deservedly influential) sees as physical and intellectual development united with spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. 

The following section develops this thinking into four basic elements: Wisdom, knowledge & skills; Hope & aspiration; Community & living well together and Dignity and Respect.

Our school is rooted in the community of Tupsley where it continues to thrive as a starting place of lifelong learning for many Herefordshire children. We believe that the relationships within our school community are fundamental to the successes of our children. Parents and visitors are welcomed into school on a regular basis for assemblies, celebrations and theatrical productions, as well as for formal academic work review. 

Relationships between pupils of all ages flourish right from the beginning of a child’s school career. 

The school has created strong, supportive links with local schools, particularly within the fields of sport and music. We are committed to our place within the St Paul’s church community and our diocesan links with the Cathedral, regularly joining with each to worship and celebrate. 

Dignity and Respect.

‘Human dignity, the ultimate worth of each person, is central to good education. The basic principle of respect for the value of each person involves continual discernment, deliberation and action, and schools are one of the main places where this happens, and where the understanding and practices it requires are learned.’ (p. 9-10)

At St Paul’s we aim to ensure that respect for the value of each individual person, both students and staff, is at the heart of the education we provide. Acknowledging the equal worth of each child is paramount, allowing the school to create a personalised learning environment which caters for individual needs and helps each child to reach their full potential. We foster close links with parents, to underpin the vital role that home and family life have in developing children’s understanding and practice of showing respect for the value of one another.

 The school community is encouraged to reflect on and challenge it’s understanding of these basic principles through exploring the Christian value of ‘respect’, both in classrooms and in whole school forums and has robust and vigilant safeguarding protocols to ensure the safety and well-being of the children in our care.

Measurement & Assessment

As a school, we concur wholeheartedly with this paragraph from page 14 of the CofE document:

One of the most sensitive areas of education is that of measurement and assessment. Much of this is rightly focused on knowledge, understanding and skills, but acknowledging that the overarching educational concern is for wisdom helps ensure that the broader concern for fullness of life is effective. This also applies to the concern for the economic importance of education and the preparation of pupils for employment. We are clear that there need be no competition between education for employment and education inspired by our four basic elements, and we know many schools where this is demonstrated. But the present regimes of measurement and assessment are often too limited, leaving much scope for wise improvement, and this will be one of the areas for research, deliberation and recommendation we develop in the future.