Our Vision

All individuals are children of God, created equally in his image to share an eternal future. We promise to play our full part in their education and formation.

Our Mission 

OUR SCHOOL AIMS

In striving to create the school climate, which will nurture this mission, the school aims:

1. To offer to all students a broad, balanced, appropriate, relevant and flexible curriculum
2. To develop as an integral part of the local community and in particular the local Catholic community; to develop and maintain the partnership between school and parents, parishes, primary schools and the wider community.
3. To develop as a worshipping community with students, parents, staff and governors following the example of Christ in their daily work and relationships; treat one another with justice, dignity, tolerance and respect and being aware of and responding to each other’s needs, hopes and aspirations.
4. To provide and maintain an attractive, happy, secure, safe and healthy school environment.  

Rationale

To provide a policy which

• Promotes achievement in our school, by stating an entitlement, for all students, to a broad and balanced curriculum, which will provide opportunities for each student to develop their full potential.
• Strives to promote an excellent teaching and a valuable / high quality learning experience for all students. 

Implementation – September 2005 

The person responsible for the implementation, reviewing, monitoring and evaluation of this policy will be the Assistant Head Teacher (Teaching and Learning) in conjunction with members of the Senior Leadership Team and Middle Leaders. A cycle of review and monitoring will be published annually. 

Relationship with other policies. 

This policy should be read in conjunction with all other policies adopted by the school. 

Core Aims 

At St Robert of Newminster Catholic School and Sixth Form College we aim to: 

• Raise levels of attainment through high quality teaching and learning.
• Develop confident, disciplined and enquiring learners with a passion for learning.
• Encourage all students to develop as independent, self- motivated learners.
• Recognise and celebrate achievement
• Develop in students an awareness of individual strengths and weaknesses within the learning process and help them identify the means by which they can improve and progress.
• Encourage all parents and carers to be aware of the learning  needs of their children and actively support them.

The school recognises that in order to fulfil our aims it should:

• Provide a Learning Framework that underpins all areas of the curriculum.
• Support teachers and other appropriate adults in the development of their professional knowledge and skills.
• Support all staff in the promotion of positive relationships that support learning, develop self esteem and student motivation.
• identify and as far as possible provide appropriate resources that contribute to effective teaching and learning.
• Recognise that good pupil behaviour and positive attitudes are essential for the delivery of high quality teaching and  learning. 

Learning 

The promotion of high quality learning can be achieved by the school recognising that: 

• Each person has several intellectual capacities, each of which deserves to be called intelligence.
• There is a need to establish what the particular strengths and weaknesses of each student are.
• Involvement of parents in each pupil’s learning is valuable and necessary.
• That the atmosphere in the school should facilitate the development of good learning attitudes which are appropriate in a variety of learning situations
• Pupils are expected to take responsibility for caring for, organising and conserving available learning resources..
• Celebrating creativity in work and throughout the school is important and necessary
• The identification of underachievement is necessary to improve the quality of learning
• The quality of teaching effects the quality of learning

All pupils are entitled to be fully engaged in, understand and take responsibility for their own thinking and learning.  Learning may be defined as “a process of undergoing personal change” and as such the school recognises that it is what the learner thinks, says and does that creates the learning not what the teacher thinks, says and does. As a consequence students will be entitled to:

• Experience learning activities that are planned to connect with prior learning, to enable progression and to allow children to experience success.
• Experience learning activities that are challenging.
• Experience learning activities that take into account their preferred learning styles, which are multi sensory and designed to stimulate their several intelligences.
• Experience learning activities that are specifically designed to develop their own thinking skills, ask questions and develop skills of discussion and debate.
• Be encouraged to work independently and co-operatively and organise and structure ideas, knowledge and understanding in a creative way.
• Develop knowledge, skills and understanding associated with ICT in order to facilitate e learning.
• Know the learning intentions they are being asked to achieve and how they are to be assessed.

Teaching

At St Roberts we believe that high quality teaching can be ensured by:

• All teachers maintaining the standards required of them according to their stage of professional development i.e.   QTS, NQT, Threshold, AST.
• Teachers following an appropriate scheme of work coordinated by their subject leader.
• Teachers, with support, being familiar with current research on effective classroom practice.
• Teachers, with support, being familiar with developments within the National Strategies.
• Teachers, with support, taking responsibility for their own professional development. Teaching may be defined as “a planned learning experience” and as such will facilitate learning by the progressive acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding and by teachers:  
• Having high expectations of each pupil in all areas of the curriculum.
• Using teaching strategies that match to students’ different needs and interests and learning preferences.
• Having an approach that allows for differentiation in the curriculum with the aim of supporting pupils of all abilities in a sensitive manner.
• Giving pupils the opportunity to be taught in whole class groups and individually as well as having interactive opportunities e.g. as part of a collaborative group or in pairs.
• Preparing lessons have clear aims and objectives that are shared with pupils so that they understand the learning intentions they are working towards and the criteria that will be applied in assessing their work.
• Providing opportunities for children to create, express, enact, recount and communicate to others and, where possible, use a variety of media including ICT.
• Providing opportunities for students to display their work.
• Encouraging children to show concern for others and to value each person’s individual contribution.
• Involving students in planning, organising and evaluating their own learning.
• Setting regular homework that provides challenge and compliments or extends learning.
• Being explicit about progress in achieving learning intentions through regular feedback and guidance which helps students understand how to improve the quality of their work and make  progress.
• Recognising the need for the effective and appropriate deployment of Teaching Assistants, Learning Mentors and other adults within the classroom.
• Developing and maintaining appropriate assessment, recording and monitoring systems.
• Employing classroom management skills that ensure a safe, secure and purposeful learning environment