We believe that Clare Community Primary School is a very special place where we all work together to enable our pupils to become successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens. We recognise those who embody this ethos through team points, Gold Book Certificates and Headteacher's Certificates during our Celebration Assemblies on Friday mornings. These values underpin everything we do at school.
Citizenship and Community
We are very proud of our links within the local community and some of the events in which we have taken part on a wider scale. For the past two years, our school choir has performed at the Young Voices concert at the O2, with more than 8,000 other pupils from different schools nationwide.
We regularly take advantage of the fantastic learning opportunities on our doorstep. This year, Year 1 have taken part in Forest Schools events at Clare Country Park, and Years 2-6 have also taken part in various activities there, including team building, collaborative learning and drama. This amazing natural resource is a continual benefit to our school, and we seek to include it in our learning whenever possible, as well as making use of the many historical links within our town.
We have also established links with other local schools, sharing best practice and taking part in regular sports fixtures and other team events.
As part of the recently-formed Stour Academy Trust, we are developing links with Stour Valley Community School, taking advantage of their facilities for subjects such as Design, Communications and Technology, aswell as their Drama studio and outside swimming pool in order to improve the skills and knowledge of staff and pupils alike.
Learning to Learn
"I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work" - Thomas A. Edison
At Clare we make it clear to children that it is good to make mistakes, and only through building resilience can we gain success. Exploring what it is to be a good learner forms part of our whole school and key stage assemblies, and many of our PSHE lessons.
Our Behaviour for Learning Policy, a copy of which is displayed in each classroom, clarifies and reminds pupils and staff of our expectations for learning behaviour and the necessary conditions for learning.
We have a School Council, with representatives from Years 1-6, which takes some responsibility for decision making within the school, and we place a high value on older pupils both working collaboratively with younger children, and modelling effective learning strategies.
Aiming High
We are proud to have a culture of high expectations and aspirations. This is visible throughout our school in our displays, our behaviour and the manner in which we interact with each other. We constantly seek new challenges and aspire to do well in everything we try.
Respecting Ourselves and Others
"Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind" - Henry James
This is probably the most important part of our ethos, and is a value that we constantly and consistently strive to instill in our pupils through the way in which we run lessons, the way in which we speak to one another, and the behaviour on which we place value.
Everyone in our school, from the children in Reception to Year 6, and each member of our teaching and learning team, is treated as a unique individual who has gifts to share with everyone else.
Enjoying Learning
Learning should be fun, and we enhance our curriculum wherever we can with opportunities for creative and imaginative learning, learning through play, and use of the outdoor classroom and our surroundings, including trips to local places of interest and resources.
Our Year 6 children take part in a three-day residential trip each year, and we have several theatre groups visiting in the summer term to perform some Shakespeare to our older children and take part in storytelling with KS1 and our Reception class.
We provide a range of extra-curricular activities and aim to continue to improve the number of clubs on offer, and the amount of children accessing these. An example clubs timetable can be viewed and downloaded by clicking on the link below.