Our Strengths as a Church School
Our theologically rooted Christian vision, “One Body, Many Parts”, provides us with the direction and mission by which we run our school. It gives us many strengths as a school, and a clear spiritual purpose to provide every member of our school community with the sense of pride and belonging that comes with being part of something bigger; part of our school, part of our community, part of our world, part of our learning and part of our flourishing.
St. Oswald’s Church of England Primary school exists to provide an education for its community. Our catchment includes families whose children have attended this school for generations. Being at the centre of that community and providing for it extends beyond the classroom. Children are given the opportunity to be involved in community life in many ways, and learn to value what community brings to a place. Looking after Guiseley and our local area is something which we weave into several other areas of the curriculum. Our community engagements includes:
- Hosting Guiseley carnival.
- Participating in the Christmas Tree festival.
- Participating in litter picking across the local areas with Guiseley Community Foundation.
- Carol singing at local care homes and public venues.
- Collaborative art projects shown to the community at the theatre.
- Working with local age concern and homelessness charities to raise money and host events.
- A food bank on site, donated to by the families, for the families.
- Planting bulbs within the Guiseley in Bloom programme.
- Providing decorations for the local celebration tree.
Spiritual development is the roots of what helps our pupils flourish. It supports their holistic development, their happiness and their resilience. We define spirituality as ‘peace and purpose’ and we support and encourage children to explore finding this for themselves. As part of their personal development, we provide opportunities to discuss their values and beliefs; to consider empathy and resilience in adversity; to learn the importance of loving themselves as God loves them; and also learn to challenge those whose values do not align with theirs.
How do we provide opportunity for spiritual growth?
| Intent | Implementation |
| Be guided by their beliefs and values and be willing to take a stand to defend them. | We actively encourage our children to be courageous advocates for everything they believe in. Across the course of their school career, they learn about key inspiring individuals who stood up for what they believed in. This inspires our children to have the courage and tenacity to defend their chosen causes. |
| Be self-aware and empathise with the experience of others in the school and wider community. | Children’s ability to reflect and be self-aware is fundamental to their ongoing success and taking ownership for their own learning. Children reflect on their learning every day, and on their values once a week. Through engagement in the local church and community projects, we help them to realise the importance of empathising with differing needs and experiences. |
| Love themselves, care for themselves, believe in their potential to achieve, and find inner strength and resilience when facing challenges. | Our Thrive approach makes sure that all children have the skills they need to approach school life with resilience and self-love. Those identified receive additional support in securing these important life skills. Our Forest School curriculum gives every child a chance to succeed and face challenges different to those experienced in the classroom. |
| Exercise imagination and creativity, appreciate beauty in the world and be alive to experiences of awe and wonder. | Inspiring children through encouraging awe at the wonders of this world is pivotal to their spiritual development. We begin topics with an image, video or experience to kickstart their wonder in the hope that they are inspired and new interests in which they can find peace and purpose are created. |
| Be intrigued by mystery and be open to an awareness of the transcendent in the whole of life. | Forest School helps our children to be curious about the world around them and become appreciative of nature and the circle of life. They become intrigued by the natural world which allows them to develop intrigue across the whole curriculum. |
| Be comfortable with stillness and silence and open to engage in reflection/meditation/prayer. | Through collective worship both at school and in church, together with class prayers, our children quickly become comfortable with silence and value the time it gives them to reflect and meditate. |
| Be ready to say sorry when mistakes are made, to forgive themselves and to forgive others. | Our core value of kindness is clear across the school and in classrooms. Collective worships focus on this theme and children are recognised for demonstrating kindness through tolerance, respect and forgiveness. |
| Be willing to take risks and to reflect, learn and grow following experiences of failure as well as success. | Through our use of the Reflect-Ed pedagogy, our children learn to reflect on their successes and failures, and learn from these. A key element of Forest School is encouragement to take calculated risks in a safe environment. |
| Demonstrate curiosity and open mindedness when exploring life’s big questions. | Running through our curriculum are ‘Big Questions’ which children investigate, debate and consider. The questions link the values and the school’s Christian vision to develop a deeper understanding of our values as the children mature. We encourage them to be open-minded and understand the value of differing opinions. |
| Appreciate and be thankful for what is good in life and show generosity towards others. | We celebrate our children and their learning both in the classroom using house points, and also through our whole school celebration assembly. Our school values are clear and present in every classroom, with our collective worships making reference to these each week. Children are recognised and praised for showing strength in the values. Each class nurtures a plant which is brought to worship as a symbol of how we look after our world and how we help it flourish as we flourish ourselves. |
Curriculum Enrichment
At St Oswald’s, we provide children with an experience-rich curriculum which helps them to see the wonder of God’s world and how they can be part of it to the fullest. We want them to be inspired by optimism for their future. Our curriculum provides opportunities for personal development in many areas to reach this goal. This includes their own personal growth through our PHSE and RSE curriculum, which includes understanding diverse families, respect, tolerance, rule of law and understanding human rights and liberties. Additional curriculum enrichment comes in many forms, including:
- Forest School – The learner-centred approach to Forest School creates a whole-school community where risk taking it encouraged, children learn through scaffolded tasks following careful observation, and the natural world is at the heart of the curriculum. Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners through cultivation of their physical, social, cognitive, linguistic, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of learning. All children receive Forest School sessions with a fully qualified instructor which links to classroom and home learning.
- Emotional Wellbeing – The Thrive Approach We foster the best outcomes for our children by understanding the importance of emotional wellbeing as a foundation for academic success. Through the use of the Thrive Approach, children are supported to acquire the understanding, skills and personal relationships required to develop, and sustain, healthy social and emotional wellbeing. We believe this is paramount in giving children the best chance of positive outcomes throughout their primary school career.
- Meta-cognition – The ReflectED Approach Children at St Oswald’s are actively taught how to process thoughts and feelings. This ability encourages students to understand how they learn best. It also helps them to develop self-awareness skills that become important as they grow. The Reflect-Ed approach to learning is used throughout the school. ReflectED teaches children to reflect on their learning and record these reflections as learning moments, assessing strategies they are using to succeed and progress. Teachers can evaluate these reflections to assess what pupils are enjoying or struggling with, and identify specific pupil needs.
- Music – We have a history of delivering excellent musical provision. Regular music lessons, embedded music experiences in class and extra-curricular opportunities mean that the children are able to access music in a variety of ways whilst at St. Oswald’s. Many children have music tuition in school, and we also started a choir in 2022. We sing with enthusiasm and gusto in collective worship each day!
- Lunchtime and after school clubs – We have a range of clubs after school, including various sports, gymnastics, dance and drama, which offer all children a wonderful opportunity to develop interests and skills. The school uses a range of external providers that bring expertise and specialisms to our extra- curricular activities. During lunchtimes, we run sports clubs , choir and a popular languages club is run by an outside languages teacher.
- Educational Visits and workshops – At St. Oswald’s we believe very strongly that educational visits enhance interest, enthusiasm and achievement for all children. In alignment with our focus on outdoor learning and our bid for Artsmark in 2025, all school visits are currently linked to the Arts or outdoor learning. These areas are something we believe that children at this school benefit from greatly and give them exposure to challenging activities, music and theatre which may ignite a lifelong interest in these areas.
We want children at St Oswald’s to understand that the world is a diverse place, with diverse faiths, ethnicities, abilities and landscapes. We teach them about the world they live in across the entire curriculum, helping them to see their place on God’s Earth. We look closely at people from across the world who have chosen to champion a minority; our courageous advocates. These change yearly and vary in terms of those they champion, including the protected characteristics under British law and topics close to the children’s hearts such as mental health and animals. We encourage children to use these role models to become courageous advocates for the things they believe in themselves – locally, nationally and globally. We want our children to take responsibility for our world; to be able to look after themselves and to foster an understanding of their importance, impact and influence in the world.
As part of this, we support a range of charities which we have identified as often being under-represented due to stigma attached to those they support. The school council work with staff, governors, parents, pupils and St. Oswald’s Church to identify worthy causes to support. In recent years we have carried out a range of different fund-raising projects to support many good causes, some of which include homelessness charities, mental health charities and neurodiversity charities.
Alongside this, we want children to transformational learning. This is a high focus on culture capital, with opportunities to understand and experience life beyond Guiseley (eg Robinwood, Herd Farm, Leeds and Bradford trips, regular focus on world events etc.) which helps children to understand their place living in God’s world. We help to go the extra mile in order support, understand and transform lives so that individuals flourish. This effort was epitomised in 2022 when the school raised over £1000 for victims of the war in Ukraine.
For our school to work cohesively, living up to our vision to be ‘one body, many parts’, every child must feel included. Every child must feel like they will succeed. Therefore, we place inclusion at the top of our agenda. As a school, we have worked towards the empowerment of all children and staff to live full lives. We have an Inclusion team, lead by Head of School and also includes the school SEND Coordinator, a Family Support Worker/Early Help Practitioner, trained Thrive Practitioners and a trained children’s counsellor. This ensures that children, parents and carers can more readily be given support and there is dedicated time to listen and respond to the needs of our most vulnerable families.
We are proud of each and every one of the children who travel through St. Oswald’s. We hope that each child looks back on their time being part of our school with great pride and fondness. We believe that each pupil leaves a legacy and is part of St. Oswald’s forever. In 2022-23 we started a new symbolic act which we think helps us to thank, remember and mark the legacy that each child leaves. By the Year 6 children planting a tree in the locality at the end of their time at school, it symbolises their journey of flourishing with us coming to an end, but the start of their journey beyond primary school. As they plant their tree, not only are they giving back to the Earth but they are planting the roots of the rest of the lives, continuing to flourish and grow to be the people they want to be.
We take a photograph of Year 6 planting their tree, and this forms our Legacy Wall in school. We hope that each child will either visit their tree or visit their photograph in school again one day, as they remember they will always be part of the St. Oswald’s family.