Navigation
Home Page

Church School

IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

This page is currently under development while it is being updated.

We are proud to be a Church School and our close links with the St Peter's Church and the Church Community strengthen and enrich our Christian Ethos, which lies at the heart of and underpins

everything we do.  

 

As a Church of England school we celebrate christian values that help us work, pray and learn together. Our school Christian Vision is ‘A Christian Environment for Growing, Learning and Fun’.

 

We provide children with a happy, safe and stimulating environment in which to learn and flourish devloping their moral and spiritual character. We actively encourage children to take responsibility for themselves and become increasingly independent. Our high expectations of behaviour, along with the many opportunities to celebrate success, make for a school in which all stakeholders are proud

to be part of.  

 

This principle remains: Church of England schools are not ‘faith schools’ in the sense of presuming children and their families are practicing Christians. We offer children an experience of faith (for example, through collective worship and links with St. Peter's church), where pupils and their families, and our staff, may have different beliefs. Families might attend a church in the area, or belong to a different faith, or choose to have no faith at all.

 

This video on You Tube published by the Diocese Of Derbyshire helps explain what a church school is and why we at St. John's are a "Church of England" School. 

 

We are also proud of our very strong links with St. Peter's Church in Belper. Reverend Anne Stratton retired in October 2024 with the church currently in a period of interregnum which means that they are between one vicar leaving and a new vicar being appointed. During this period we work closely with the Wardens of St Peter's Church.

 

We also deliver regular services at St. Peter's led by children from different year groups to celebrate particular festivals or events in the life of the school. Inaddition to the regular services, our children also frequently visit St. Peter's for educational visits when we discover more about christian worship and faith. 

 

We also celebrate our links with the Diocese of Derbyshire. As part of the diocese family we are able to work together with diocese staff and with the staff from more than a hundred other Church of England Schools in Derbyshire to help us support children and staff.

 

Voluntary Controlled (VC) schools

 

There are 1620 VC schools. VC schools are 'managed' by the local authority (LA) whilst maintaining their distinctive characteristics.

 

The key characteristics of a VC school are:

 

  • The LA employs the staff, but they are appointed by the governors
  • The LA is responsible for admissions arrangements.
  • The LA can advise the governing body; the diocesan director of education (DDE) may be given the same opportunity to advise.
  • RE taught is the LA agreed syllabus and worship reflects the Anglican tradition
  • No one group of governors is in a majority. Church or Foundation governors are in a minority.

The images below shows St. Peter's church on a fresh winter morning and a summer day. You are invited to take a virtual tour of St. Peter's church CLICK HERE. 

Click on the link below to be directed to the Collective Worship page with every thing you need to know about our values and Collective Worship here at St John's.

 

CLICK HERE

INFORMATION COMING SOON

SIAMS inspection (Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools) focuses on the impact of the Church school's Christian vision on pupils and adults. This involves looking at the school’s Christian vision, the provision the school makes because of this vision and how effective this provision is in enabling all pupils to flourish. Church schools will employ a variety of strategies and styles appropriate to, and reflective of, their particular context in order to be distinctively and effectively Christian in their character and ethos. SIAMS inspectors therefore do not look for a set template of what a Church school should be like, but rather take the particular context of the school into account and base their evaluation on the outcomes rather than the process.

 

Inspectors make one of two judgements:

 

The inspection findings indicate that the school is living up to its foundation as a Church school, and is enabling pupils and adults to flourish.

 

Or

 

The inspection findings indicate that the school has strengths, but that there are also issues that leaders need to address as a matter of priority.

Top