It is the determination of this school to ensure that every child receives the best quality education possible. We want to develop a personalised education which meets their individual needs. We promise to deliver an education that develops all aspects of the child’s personality and gives them every opportunity to succeed in their growing understanding of the world.
We want to develop the whole child and to this end the activities available at this school will be varied and encompass a broad spectrum of experiences in the academic, pastoral, creative, physical, philosophical and spiritual realms. Our aspiration for our children is that they live happy, healthy and secure lives both as children and later as adults. We want them to grow in their understanding of themselves and their place in the world, how to care for themselves, their families and the wider environment. We want them to be ‘thinkers’, people who are reflective and able to make reasoned decisions based on clear principles, to be ‘true to themselves’. We want our children to understand themselves within a global community and to make links with other children within their own city, their country and internationally.
It is paramount to us that all children have the basic skills in English, maths and computing. We also strive to enable the children to function at a high level in the creative arts, to have independent study skills, excellent social manners and good health and physical development. We are committed to developing children with enquiring minds and to help them gain an understanding of their place in the world, how to sustain that world and to respect the rights of others to share the world with them. We want the children to learn for life, be good decision makers, emotionally intelligent and able to deal with difficulties as they arise both now and in the future.
We will offer a wide variety of experiences that challenge, interest and inspire the children. We are committed to continually developing the skills-based curriculum of the school in order to ensure we offer best practice in learning and teaching.
We want our children to understand the importance of decision making and how making good choices will improve their lives. We will give them opportunities to take part in decision making in school, whether this be on an inter-personal level, within their classrooms or in the wider context of whole school business.
There will be discussions and interaction with adults who understand the need to help children with relationships and wherever possible we will reach outcomes that satisfy all parties within the behaviour management systems of the school. Our behaviour management is based on the principles of understanding and accepting that, in British society, we have a responsibility to manage our behaviour appropriately. We do this in order to build on the community spirit fostered within the school and to ensure pupils understand the importance of taking responsibility for their own actions.
We believe the more investment the children make in running the school on a day to day basis, the more responsibility they will take to ensure the school is a safe, secure and open place where all members understand how to help the school community be a place of excellence in all respects. To that end the children are required to take responsibility for the smooth running of the school through the school council, being monitors, class helpers and peer buddies to younger children. Older pupils will be expected to support younger ones through paired education.
We are fully committed to safeguarding our children and actively work to protect children across all our practice. We will also teach the children how to keep themselves safe – in school, outside school and within the ever-changing world of technology. We will train our staff to recognise the signs and symptoms of abuse including physical and emotional abuse, neglect or sexual abuse. We will report concerns quickly to our partners in child protection; the local authority designated officer; social care or to the police.
We will ensure that all the adults who come to work with our children will be vetted and verified as safe to work with children. We will endeavour to employ the best quality staff so that we can deliver an excellent education.
Every child’s needs are important and where we find children unable to access the curriculum and activities we offer, we will work hard to discover what type of difficulties they may be experiencing. We will endeavour to meet those needs either in-house or with our partners and external agencies in order to support them to become safe, independent learners.
We are committed to working together with our parents and carers. We hope that the work we do in school will be supported at home and that there will be a growing understanding that we have the best interests of the children at the heart of the school. We recognise that it is important to keep an open and respectful dialogue with our parents, carers and other partners in order to benefit the children. To this end, the expectations we have of the children to maintain healthy, honest relationships with each other will be exampled by the way the adults in school treat each other and the other adults who we come into contact with during our day to day work at Windmill Academy.
We want to extend this to developing the ‘school within the community’ and work with our partners in other trust schools, the wider family of Nottingham schools and our partners in business. We want to create a holistic approach to life-long learning for other members of the school community.
Building trust, working together and keeping our vision for the school at the forefront of our planning, discussions and decision making will help us to ensure we don’t overlook the needs of any of the children who come to this school. We are here for our children; it is our responsibility to do our best for them, to care for their needs and to support our parents and carers in the enormous and exciting task of raising young people in an ever more complex and global society. We know we have a privileged place in that process and our promise to our parents, children and other stakeholders is that we will do our best, be honest in our mistakes and use our resources wisely to reach our goals.
