School information
St Peter's and the Church
The Curriculum
Religious Education
Educational Visits
Sex Education
Children with Special Educational Needs
Homework
Extra-curricular Activities
Instrumental Tuition
Secondary Schools
St Peter's and the Church
'This is a Church of England school in the Diocese of Exeter. Recognising its historic foundation, the school will preserve and develop its religious character in accordance with the principles of the Church of England and in partnership with the church in the parish and the diocese. The school aims to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality within the context of Christian belief and practice. It encourages an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith, and promotes Christian values through the experiences it offers to all its pupils.'St Peter's enjoys close links with the Parish Church of St Eustachius in the centre of town. The Church authorities make a significant contribution towards the maintenance of the school. We welcome children to St Peter's regardless of their religious or denominational background.
Children participate in school Eucharists and other services which are held at St Peter's or in the Parish Church. The vicar is a regular visitor to the school and leads the act of worship once a week. Each class regularly leads our morning worship to which parents are warmly invited. Back to top
The Curriculum
Our curriculum is designed to help meet the stated aims of the school and that of the National Curriculum. The latter comprises -Core subjects - English, Mathematics and Science
Foundation Subjects - Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Design Technology, Music, Geography, History, Art and P.E.
Religious Education is also undertaken through both formal lessons and our daily act of worship.
Emphasis is placed on the development of fluent reading and writing - including handwriting, grammar and spelling. The school has embraced the philosophy behind the National Literacy Strategy (or Literacy Hour) and is seeing the benefits of this highly structured approach. The aim is constantly to stretch the able, support those who find learning difficult and ensure each child has the opportunity and desire to achieve of their best. A wide range of reading materials is used together with an excellent range of real books. These provide every child with the opportunity to succeed with reading and allow a breadth of reading materials at each stage of development. All children are encouraged to participate in our 'Bookworm Award' scheme designed to stimulate the habit of reading for pleasure. We expect these books to go home and hope that parents will spend time reading to, reading with, and listening to their child with books. In the upper half of the school the children are expected to use handwriting pens for much of their written work.
'The National Numeracy Strategy' is now well imbedded and clearly helping the children develop essential and relevant skills. The children are 'set' according to ability and aptitude for this area, which helps focus time and attention on the individual needs of the pupils. All children are expected to learn the multiplication tables and complete regular numeracy homework tasks. Any encouragement offered by parents at home with this is greatly appreciated, and from experience, we can say, is greatly effective.
The other curriculum areas are taught as discrete subjects, following the Units of Study provided by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. This provides a substantial framework to provide the children with both a broad and thorough foundation of skills and knowledge for future study. Wherever possible realistic links are made between the subject areas. We inform parents at the beginning of each term about the main themes to be covered in each subject.
Spanish is taught to our lower school children and they will continue to study this as they progress through the school. French is currently introduced to all the year 6 children.
The school has a strong tradition of sporting excellence, regularly doing well in inter-school competitions. The school has been awarded the Sport England 'Activemark' Back to top
Religious Education
Religious Education is based on the Bible and the practices of the Church of England. Reference will be made to other faiths and denominations. As a Church school we hope parents will support our desire to provide children with a knowledge, understanding and foundation of the Christian faith. However parents have the right to withdraw children from RE lessons and the act of worship. Back to topEducational Visits
To support our curriculum a number of educational trips are organised, including a four-day residential visit during the child's final year. In recent years we have enjoyed excellent trips to the Avon and Somerset area.Parents will be invited to make voluntary contributions if they wish their child to participate in any trip or visit taking place 'during school hours'. There is no obligation to contribute and no child will be treated differently whether a contribution has been made or not. However the school reserves the right to cancel the trip if the voluntary contributions do not meet the cost. Back to top
Sex Education
This area is covered during the child's final two years at St Peter's. Letters will be sent home to make parents aware of when this is to take place. The DVD series we use is widely used throughout the country and is available for parents to view. Parents may withdraw their children from sex education lessons if they wish. During a child's time at St Peter's questions may be raised by the children which will be answered with sensitivity and with regard to the child's age and understanding. Back to topChildren with Special Educational Needs
Some additional support is available for those children who have been assessed and diagnosed as having specific learning difficulties. This may involve some individual or small group tuition in the core subjects with a specialist teacher and/or support from a learning support assistant. The school is very suitable for children with mobility difficulties as it is all on one level. A Special Needs register is maintained and you will be consulted if it is felt your child should be included on it. Parents are most welcome to see a copy of our Special Educational Needs policy Back to topHomework
It is expected that parents will encourage their children to read at home, learn multiplication tables, practice spellings and to talk about what they have been doing in school. Parents are encouraged to buy a Maths Homework book from us which helps support the ongoing class work. From time to time children will be asked to find out information from home or to complete tasks set during the day. They may be given specific additional work from time to time. Such tasks will increase as children reach the upper part of the school. This is good preparation for the more intensive homework they will receive at their secondary school. Back to topExtra-curricular Activities
St Peter's is very fortunate in having teachers and parents who freely give of their time to organise a wide range of activities at lunch times and after school. We hope that the children will make full use of these to develop new interests or simply to enjoy existing ones. We have been awarded the nationally recognised 'Educational Extra' Certificate of Distinction in recognition of our out of school provision. Such club activities have recently includedCricket, Chess, Choir, Country Dancing, Drama, Football, ICT/website, Maypole Dancing, Netball, Origami, School Band and Tag Rugby.
Due to the popularity of some clubs it is often necessary to restrict the number of participants, but all children are able to take part in at least one club. Back to top
