At the Priory School we believe that educating the heart is as important as educating the mind. We seek for our pupils to become kind as well as numerate, compassionate as well as confident. We our driven by our core values of love, aspiration, forgiveness and respect.
Alongside the National Curriculum, we have also woven into our curriculum specific lessons to develop character and citzenship. These include our learning behaviours, our focus on being ‘Heartsmart’, the importance of spirituality and British values.
Learning Behaviours
We believe that if children are to succeed in their learning and in life, they need to adopt key learning behaviours and traits. Therefore we constantly refer to ‘Creating Excellent Learners’ and our Learning Heroes who remind us about the different characteristics we need to adopt to be a great learner.
Team bee reminds the children they need to build positive working relationships with others. The children are encouraged to try different ways to solve a problem like Winston, the Wise Owl or the importance of being resilient like Ruby the rainbow fish. Sparky the unicorn reminds the children to be reflective and Ralph the risk-taking lion reminds the children the importance of courage and having a go. Finally there is Dotty the Dolphin who loves to be resourceful.
CEL (Creating Excellent Learners) is an intentional approach at helping children to become better learners. It is about creating a culture in classrooms that cultivates learning behaviours and attitudes to enable children to face challenges calmly, confidently and creatively. It offers a shared language of learning across the school as well as shared and progressive expectations:
| RelationshipsThe skill of working well with others and showing them respect (and not disrupting, hurting, ignoring, undermining) We all contribute. | Resilience The ability to cope with set-backs, to stay on task and to keep going when things don’t go your way. The power of ‘yet’. | ResourcefulnessThe willingness to be creative, to show flexibility, to be organised and to make effective decisions Having resources is less important than how resourceful you are. |
| Reasoning The understanding of how articulate my thinking, be critical, make links and logical connections. Learn to use your brain power. | ReflectivenessThe skill of listening actively, evaluating learning and applying what we’ve learnt in different contexts. Reflective thinking turns experience into insight. | Risk-taking The willingness to take part, to contribute, to try the unexpected and to show curiosity. It always seems impossible until it’s done. |
Spirituality
The Priory Spirituality Statement
Heartsmart
We are so excited to be a HeartSmart School! HeartSmart is a creative new approach that we’re using to build character, emotional health and resilience in children.
Equipping children with foundational principles and skills that will improve their mental health and relationships and academic achievement, we want everyone to know that they are loved, cared for and valued. Loving Ourselves and Loving Others.
You can find our more about Heartsmart on the following page.