ABOUT US

The school aims to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality within Christian belief and practice. It encourages an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith and promotes Christian values through the experience it offers to all its pupils.

All children have a statutory right to be admitted to school at the beginning of the school term following their fifth birthday. In Dorset children may start school at the beginning of the school year in which they are five (the school year is from 1st September to 31st August). During their first term, the children attend on a part-time basis of five half days each week. Normally children then attend on a full-time basis of five days a week from January.

At the end of Year 4 our children transfer to a middle school. For those living in our catchment area this is usually St Osmund's CE (Aided) Middle School in Dorchester.

In the Reception year our curriculum is based on 'Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage'. This curriculum builds on children's prior learning and underpins all future learning by supporting, fostering, promoting and developing children's:

• Personal, social and emotional well-being;
• Positive attitudes and dispositions towards their learning;
• Social skills;
• Attention skills and persistence;
• Language and communication;
• Reading and writing;
• Mathematics;
• Knowledge and understanding of the world;
• Physical development;
• Creative development.

Within our support for children with special educational needs we aim:

• To enable all children, whatever their special needs, to participate fully in the life of the school and learn from a broad and balanced curriculum;
• To provide an appropriate range of settings and activities so that each child is challenged, experiences high expectations and achieves success;
• To encourage a high level of self esteem;
• To work in partnership with parents and children to assess children’s needs, to develop specific, individual targets and strategies to achieve these;
• To seek advice and intervention from external agencies as necessary, and work in collaboration to meet children’s needs most effectively.