Values & Ethos
Our Values and Ethos
Our school motto runs through everything we do at Kedington Primary Academy.
In all sorts of different ways, we believe everyone should appreciate and value what they have and who they are. This includes noticing and appreciating the amazing world around them, the things they have worked hard at and are good at. We also expect everyone to show each other that we notice, care about and appreciate each other.
But we also believe everyone should aspire to even greater things. This includes things like being aware of the wider world and developing a thirst to travel or find out more about it, or working to get even better at something.
This permeates all areas of school life. For children, we use praise a lot to highlight what they do well, but also make sure they keep pushing themselves to be as good as they can be. For staff, we appreciate all the fantastic skills each individual has and how they contribute to the school, and support them to further their practice and be the best they can be.
Likewise, at a whole school level, we are very proud of our school, but in all areas keep striving to improve and be the best we can possibly be.
Our Values
We have six values that we want our children to have embedded by the time they move on to the next step in their journey. We focus on one each half term:
- resilience
- responsibility
- appreciation
- community
- respect
- kindness
Our Curriculum Aims
We believe our curriculum should have an impact on what children know, what kind of people they become and the skills they develop. A way that we find helpful to describe this is through a ‘head, heart and hands’ model.
HEAD
A knowledge-rich curriculum with clear progression and cohesion
HEART
A curriculum that helps to develop children’s character to become the best people they can be
HAND
Clearly defined skills that are carefully developed across the curriculum
Staff and governors have also identified three key drivers that will run through our curriculum design. These are areas where we want our children to have lots of experiences of so that they can excel and gain a rich, deep understanding. We will make a point of maximising opportunities to promote these across our curriculum.
Appreciating, understanding and celebrating DIVERSITY
Understanding and appreciating THE WORLD they live in, both locally and globally
Being RESILIENT LEARNERS who embrace challenge and aren’t afraid to fail
Building Learning Powers and Growth Mindset
We actively teach children about different ‘learning powers’ that they need to practice in order to become really effective learners. These include ‘learning muscles’ such as collaboration, noticing, questioning, managing distractions, making links, imitation, and imagining.
We explain to children that like exercising our muscles, we need to work to build up our ‘learning muscles’.
A growth mindset approach is also embedded across the school, emphasising that success comes through hard work, time and learning, rather than innate ability.
