John Stainer

Our Values

At John Stainer, our vision and mission statement is part of everything we do. We will provide your child with…

‘An excellent education to enjoy, empower and enable.’

At John Stainer great importance is placed on providing an environment that encourages learning, where the children are taught to be as calm, considerate and courteous as possible, whilst still inspiring the excitement and enjoyment of learning. These qualities are actively fostered and always praised.

OFSTED 2012 “Pupils attitudes to learning are exemplary. They show a great deal of respect and care for each other, and their attendance is high”

We aim for every child to have high self-esteem and be equipped to make a valuable contribution in later life.

We celebrate the diversity and uniqueness of the children in our school, and with a values based approach all children are encouraged and challenged to achieve and be the best they can be and become active and responsible members of their community. We believe these are core British Values.

Six values are taught each year, one per half term. Values are embedded through whole school assemblies and cross-curricular application, as well as in class circle time, home learning projects and celebration assemblies.

As well as promoting children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development across the school, we practice five minutes of meditation daily, and we find this helps the children to relax. Our values have a special focus through other celebrations such as ‘Cool to be Kind Week’ and ‘Culture Day’.

As a school we have developed our core values with our parents, children, staff and governors.

Our six core values 

  • Community
  • Kindness
  • Friendship
  • Happiness
  • Honesty
  • Respect

Community 

In the Autumn term the children all learn about how we are part of different communities, including our school, our local area and being part of a worldwide community.

As part of this school value we teach the children about equality, freedom and pride during our Black History Week and Culture Day celebrations; also valuing others, becoming better people and the importance of empathy and humanity, and caring for our global community as part of our Harvest Festival. Each year we choose a charity to support, and all the children hear about its work, and donate to their work.

We chose the local charity The Lewisham Donation Hub in Ladywell.  The children heard about the work they do in supporting refugees.  During assemblies and in our PSHE lessons, we learned about what a refugee is, and how difficult life can be if you are forced to leave your home suddenly.  Each class contributed to harvest donations by bringing just one item.  For example toothpaste, shower gel or tins of food.  The school council helped to collect the items from each classroom, and bag them up so they could be given to The Donation Hub.

In 2019 we raised money for a small charity called Sal's Shoes.  They take underused shoes and re-distribute them around the world, to people who don't have any.  This is a really great charity, as for many children, without a pair of shoes, there is no chance of going to school.

The children at John Stainer school, generously responded by donating 251 pairs of shoes, and raised a whopping £816.47.

     

 We have also supported the work of The Giraffe Mobile Education Project, and learned about how our money could make a difference in bringing books and literacy to some of the poorest children in Ghana.

We managed to raise an enormous £1593.42.  Well done everyone!

 In the second part of the Autumn term we have our favourite week of the year in John Stainer.

We celebrate the value of kindness by holding a “Cool To Be Kind week” where everyone in the school performs random acts of kindness, and goes out of their way to do kind things for others. Every class performs kind deeds as well, and there is a home learning challenge to do something extraordinarily kind and report back about it. It is great to see the whole school putting others first, and going out of their way to think about other people.

Friendship

In the first half term of the Spring Term we focus on the value of Friendship. All the children come together in this term to learn new ways of co-operation, appreciation of other people, listening to other people’s points of views, as well as forgiveness, loyalty, collaboration, and how they can show great friendship by sticking by someone – no matter what! The playground is a great place to see John Stainer children showing the value of Friendship, where the older children actively seek out the younger ones who might not have someone to play with.

Happiness

Meditation is practised in every classroom, and the children regularly take part in visualisation meditations and learn breathing techniques and calming strategies.

This helps them in the classroom, allowing them to prepare for their learning, as well as providing them with strategies for a healthy mind and happy attitude to life. Our value of happiness is all about children building resilience, perseverance, peace, thankfulness and self-esteem. We celebrate some of these themes in our special Easter assembly, where all classes come together to share the ideas they have unpicked during class circle time or PSHE lessons.

Honesty

Our Summer term begins with the children learning about the value of Honesty.

They explore the themes of trust, fairness, courage and responsibility, as well as telling the truth and rights and responsibilities. We also teach the importance of British Values such as democracy and freedom of speech. John Stainer School went to the polls when it was the General Election, with hustings taking place in Year 6 and then campaigns and speeches by the elected candidates. Finally all the children in the school heard manifestos and then voted in a proper election!

Respect

Finally in the last part of the school year, we focus on the value of Respect.

As children are moving up to the next year group, and our Year 6 children are preparing for secondary transfer, we make sure that all the children in the school understand about respect for themselves and others. This also includes tolerance, personal integrity, why we have rules, what happens when we break rules, accountability, and the role of authority. At John Stainer we have very respectful pupils, and visitors to our school often comment about the excellent manners and behaviour displayed by our children.

OFSTED 2008 “Pupils are delightful, very polite and welcoming. Their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is outstanding. Excellent systems are in place to make sure that pupils’ behaviour is outstanding”  

Values Oscars 

Each year we host our Values Oscars where the children choose a book character who has demonstrated the chosen value in a reading book of their choice. The children write a brief explanation on why their chosen character deserves recognition and should win. The winning characters are revealed after nominations are shortlisted and whole school voting has taken place in the ceremony. We have a lavish and spectacular Oscar Star Award Ceremony, to which parents, children and staff wear their finery, glitz and glamour. 

Staff dress in role, to represent these great characters who all have their special moment on the red carpet. Winners receive a trophy (and a thunderous applause).

Oscars 2018

We had  nominations and then from the shortlist of 12, we voted for our favourite book characters who have shown amazing perseverance and resilience! Nobody knew, right up until the day, which of the amazing characters had won the gold, silver or bronze awards! Meet our finalists, and then... we will reveal the winners! 

Click to view clips with the main characters 

   Alfonsina Strada

 

     Rosa Parks

 

     Matilda

 

    Charlie Bucket

 

 

  Hermione Granger

 

    Oliver

 

    Katy

 

 

     Auggie Pullman

 

  The Singing Mermaid

 

   The Iron Man

 

    Charlotte

 

 

Hiccup 

 

And the winners are...

Bronze - Hiccup

Silver - Matilda  ... and

Gold - Auggie Pulman!

 Oscars 2022

Click below to download the application form and more information about the Resilience Oscars.

resilience oscars 2022.pdf

resilience oscars summer 2022.pdf

And the winners are...

Gold - Harry Potter

Silver - Dumbledore

Oscars 2023 

Click below to download the application form and more information about our 2023 Courage Oscars.

the courage oscars.pdf

Living out our values:

The John Stainer Community came together to respond to the terrible events happening in Ukraine, and the refugee crisis in neighbouring Poland.  They donated two car loads of supplies including nappies, toothpaste, bedding, coats and medical supplies.  They were donated to The Lewisham Polish Centre in Forest Hill, who transported them by van, across Europe to the refugee centres on the border in Poland.   

      

Thank you for all your kindness and generosity from the people of Poland:

 

Our school values are embraced by all members of our school community. Families at John Stainer recently donated essentials like food water and blankets to countries affected by the recent earthquakes.

 This page was last updated on 3rd July 2023