Christian values and practice are at the heart of our school life and they underpin all that we do. Our distinctive Christian character is developed through every aspect of school life. We have strong, well established links with our local churches who contribute regularly to our worship programme and we enjoy opportunities across the year to worship in St Andrew’s our local church.
Our aim is to provide a safe environment in which each child feels valued as unique and precious and in which each child can find security, acceptance, reassurance and an opportunity to flourish. We aim to create a caring and happy community in which Christian values are upheld. We encourage caring relationships between all members of the school community, characterised by Christian love, kindness, respect and trust, with a mutual concern for each other’s well-being.
Reflection areas, displays and artefacts are a constant reminder of our Church of England school status.
Each half term we explore a different Christian value to enable children to understand its meaning and look for opportunities to demonstrate the value and observe it in others.
Persevering means to keep trying even when the going gets tough. The children will be encouraged to have self-belief in order to keep on going and to speak out for what they believe is right. They will also reflect upon God's persevering love. Jesus frequently encouraged his disciples to 'endure patiently' the difficulties and obstacles they encountered and to persevere in the face of adversity. He himself trusted in God even when his enemies tried to stop his work and plotted his death.
Very little that is really worthwhile in life can be achieved without perseverance. An athlete may train for years before they are ready to compete at the highest level. A musician must practice every day, sometimes for hours at a time, if they are to really master their instrument. In our learning, we know that through perseverance we can experience success.
We are linking the Christian value courage, to our Golden Rule ‘We are honest – we don’t cover up the truth’.
We will be encouraging the children to think about the times when it is important to be brave and what gives us the strength. Being courageous can mean different things to different people. For example, one person may think it easy to speak in front of a large audience, whilst another would need to find lots of courage to do this.
Everyone faces challenges from time to time, and we need to find courage to deal with them.
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to overcome that fear.”
Nelson Mandela
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The lord is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made (Psalm 145: 8-9)
We will explore the importance of ensuring that our attitudes and actions reflect kindness and compassion. Compassion is much stronger than sympathy; it has more to do with stepping into someone’s shoes, sharing their experiences and sufferings and wanting to support them or act on their behalf. It is not just feeling sorry for someone but actually doing something about making their life or situation better.
Compassion is about ‘standing in someone else’s shoes’ when they are having a hard time. In other words, trying to understand how they might be feeling and doing our best to try to help.
We will be encouraging the children to think about:
- how we can show compassion and kindness to one another at home
- recognising when friends at school need us to listen and act with compassion
- stories in the news demonstrating how strangers show compassion in times of natural disasters
- how nations show compassion to other nations at times of disaster or need by sending money or volunteers to help
We will be linking Compassion to ‘The Parable of the Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10:25-37)
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We introduced the value of generosity in assembly through the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. When we think about generosity we often think about the act of giving away money or material possessions. But there are so many other ways we can show generosity with our actions and our words; we can give: time, attention, encouragement, thanks... and they are all important.
We will also explore the importance of giving without seeking reward and be encouraging everyone within our school community to commit acts of generosity.
Trust is a really important value. If we do not trust someone, it is very hard to build a good friendship with them. Here at Temple Grafton we work to build our children's trust in us so that they recognise its value to teamwork and collaboration.
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Hope is a universal human phenomenon. People hope for peace in time of war; food in time of famine; justice in time of oppression. Hope generates energy and sustains people through difficult times.
Christian hope is grounded in the character of God. It is a hope rooted in the love and faithfulness of God. Hope is not wishful thinking but a firm assurance that God can be relied upon and his promises can be trusted. Hope is not always spontaneous or easy. There is work to be done. As well as trusting God, we have to develop qualities of steadfastness in our own character. It is about believing that the world can be a better place and being prepared to do something!
Christian hope means trusting in the loving purposes of God: trusting that the foundations of the world are good because they spring from God. It means believing that, ultimately, we are destined to share in that goodness because of what Jesus has done.