Woodside C of E Primary School

Our School

Our Vision and Values

Staff List

Our Faith in action!

Pupil Leadership

School Admissions

Special Educational Needs

Pupil Premium Funding

PE and Sports Funding

Safeguarding

Governors

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We hope you will get a good feel for the character and Christian distinctiveness of our school as your arrive.

We believe everyone from leaders, governors, teachers and support staff and of course our children have an important role to play in making our school a place where Christian love and hope is expressed in everyday life.

At Woodside, we are one big family. We see ourselves as the 'beacon of light' for our whole village community. We aim to bring light, love, hope and respect to all through our collaboration inside of school but also out in our local and wider community as well as our world.

We believe in the spiritual development of all pupils. For us, spirituality is the opening of hearts and minds, through reflection, and the questioning of the world.

We try to approach spirituality with children in a way that they can understand. In Collective Worship, we use the concept of Windows, Mirrors and Doors to structure our worship and allow time for reflection.

We are also link this to Wows and Ows!

Wows! – The Awe and Wonder moments where your heart sings, you feel blessed, you gasp with excitement or feel truly happy!

Ows! – The moments where we are brought up short. We are shocked or saddened or surprised.

In Collective Worship each week, we look to these moments explicitly.

In school, we promote spiritual development in a myriad of ways and try to think of this linked to SELF, OTHERS, WORLD and BEYOND.

Spiritual development may come through the curriculum e.g. through explicit reflection of SELF in PSHE lessons or consideration of OTHERS in our team work during PE. Sometimes though, it is through the wider school life where we encourage Spiritual Development.

We would like to share with you a 'snapshot' of learning and opportunities that are important to use as a Church of England school...

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What we think of being in a Church of England School

Our 'Junior Leadership team' have been thinking about what a Church of England school means and why it is important to them:

We are a Christian school which means:

We learn about God - all of the wonderful things he has done and what he wants us to be like.

We have values which are key to the Christian faith and we try hard to live these every day.

Our school's vision is linked to the Bible.

We have connections with church and visit regularly.

We pray and even have our own school prayer.

We celebrate Christian festivals and learn the true meaning of them.

We are inclusive and welcome everybody.

Our logo

The school logo, which is embroidered on our school uniform and used on our stationary, is based on designs created by our children. A logo competition was launched in March 22, to encourage children and parents to think about a new modern logo that encompassed 'all things Woodside' and reflected our Christian ethos'

The tree represents growth, which is part of our school vision at Woodside. We are also surrounded by a beautiful natural environment with lots of trees overarching our school.

The cross at the bottom represents our Christian ethos and our status as a Church of England school and close connections with the parish church of St Nicholas- Baddesley and All Saints, Grendon, which dominates the Baddesley and Grendon landscape.

The leaves represent the open arms of our school family, reaching out to our community, standing tall and bringing comfort, love, compassion and growth to all regardless of their background or diversity.

Reflection and Spirituality

Around school, there are various scriptures and quotes from significant people both in the church community and wider. These give children the opportunity to reflect and give them the opportunity to think and engage in spirituality.

Our School Prayer

Was written by a pupil in 2022, after Mrs Johnson-Headteacher launching a competition for pupils to create a new school prayer that reflected the journey Woodside was about to embark on.

Dear God,

Forgive us for all our wrongs and praise us for our rights.

Let our school community be a place of learning, wonder and love.

Help us to grow and develop together to achieve our very best.

We wish that you can guide us in learning to help and understand each other and create wonderful friendships.

Keep us safe, happy and a big Woodside family.

Please help us to be lights that shine for you.

Amen

Collective Worship

As a school we participate in a collective act of worship every day. Currently the overview of daily worship is as follows:

Monday- Class spirituality worship

Tuesday- Open the Book- from Church

Wednesday- Singing - Act of Praise

Thursday- Living out our school and British values- with pupils involved in leading.

Friday- Celebration worship

There are times throughout the year where we gather together, not only as a school, but also as a whole community to worship, share and reflect.

Open the Book

We are very pleased to welcome the 'Open the Book' team into school every week. The team is a group of people from different churches in the parish who come together to share Bible stories with us.

We love to join in as they act, read, perform and sing. Each week a group of children is selected to participate with the lively dramatisation of a Bible story , helping to bring our collective worship to life.

Messy Harvest, Easter and Christmas

Our wonderful 'Open the Book' team come into school again each term to help us celebrate and learn about our Christian festivals.

The school comes together to open our doors to parents, grandparents and other family members to offer collaboration and fellowship through 'Messy' activities.

The days start with an act of collective worship led by the church and leaders, then children work together and with their families to learn about Harvest, Christmas and Easter through fun engaging craft activities. At lunch, our Junior Senior Leadership Team, provide an act of fellowship by hosting a lunch of thanks to our volunteers from lunch. The children serve and entertain the volunteers to express our gratitude.

Prayer Spaces

As well as there being various places for children to reflect throughout the day, as a school we have other quiet and relaxing spaces for prayer, some permanent, others temporary, giving opportunities for thought and reflection.

Flo's friendship garden and pond

We have a few special places in our outdoor area, where we can sit quietly and think or say a prayer. Both set amongst the outdoor area, it links us to nature as well as our 'wonderful Flo' a pupil at our school who sadly lost her battle with Neuroblastoma in September 23. She left behind a huge legacy at Woodside and touched the lives of all children, their families and our community.

Flo brought the community together to create her friendship garden whilst battling Neuroblastoma and brought positivity and collaboration at a difficult time for all. The garden was designed by her in April 22.

In June 23, after winning £2500 grant from Warwickshire LA after entering a green shoots competition. Flo set about bringing further change to all at Woodside and our village community. She brought life and energy back to our pond area through design, creativity and spirituality.

Both of these places, since Flo's passing now provide a place of spirituality and sanctuary for our staff, pupils , Flo's family and wider community.

Messy Harvest - Sept 23.docx

Spirituality policy Sept 23.docx

Collective worship Autumn 23.docx

We are an inclusive school that values all. Jesus taught us to love one another and to all the same. I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. — [John 13:34]

We have a link with the Olive School in Birmingham, which is a predominantly Islamic faith school. Our Y3 children invited them to Woodside, to work together on a project where we look at the identities of one another and share the importance of all begin equal. In Feb 24, we will be returning to their school.