Headteacher’s Welcome

It is my privilege to welcome you to St. Peter’s CE Primary Academy, Hednesford. The Academy is part of Future Generation Trust and serves the former mining community of Hednesford, with over 445 pupils attending from Nursery to Year 6. Our school community is a happy, welcoming and nurturing place where each pupil is known individually, encouraged to thrive and developed into confident, caring and active citizens, within our Christian foundation. Every child is encouraged to ‘Reach for the Sky’ in all they do, focusing on five key characteristics which will enable them to be successful in their learning and in their futures. These are: resilience in the face of challenge; excellence in all they do, ambition for their future selves; captivated by a love learning; happy, helpful and ready to contribute. We seek to enable all children to ‘Reach for the Sky’ and to strive to make every day their best, building on what has gone before to shape the future. The five key areas of our motto demonstrate the value the school places on the holistic child, not just on their academic achievements. It enshrines our view that every child is an individual with special talents, interests and needs. As an educational setting, it is our privilege to foster these, to develop trustful relationships that enable every child to flourish and to give each young person the very best start in life.

Learning at St. Peter’s seeks to inspire, engage and motivate children to succeed in understanding the world around them through inquisitiveness and practical experiences. The curriculum design reflects at every stage the core knowledge that children should know whilst also ensuring that the skills they acquire are developed to enable them to become independent and resourceful learners for the next stage of their education. As an inclusive school, we are ambitious for the outcomes and futures of all our children and seek to ensure that all learners are given opportunity to build the knowledge, skills and personal attributes needed to be successful members of society, through their educational journey and into employment. Given our location on the edge of the Hednesford Hills, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, we have some of the best facilities for learning beyond the classroom, making use of our amazing outdoor classroom, wooded area and our newly planted wildflower meadow to promote learning across the curriculum as well as sustainability. We further enrich the curriculum through visits, visitors and special experiences as well as offering specialist PE and music tuition. As pupils progress through school there are also opportunities to go on residential visits to local Outdoor Education Centres and visits to Europe.

We are a proud Church of England school, judged as Outstanding at SIAMS, with very close links to our church, St. Peter’s, and a strong Christian ethos that pervades daily life in school for pupils and staff. Our outstanding Christian distinctiveness is demonstrated through our daily Collective Worship, our RE curriculum and the strong Christian values we promote and develop in our pupils. In all we do in school and in our daily lives, we trust that we are carrying out God’s work and seek to follow the example that Jesus set. Learning can be difficult, life can be uncertain and growing up in modern society presents an often-confusing picture of what decisions we, as individuals, should make. This is why, along with the aspirational sentiment of Reach for the Sky, we ask all members of the school community to live their lives placing their trust in God: In God We Trust.  By placing our trust and faith in God, we commit ourselves and our actions to him to strengthen us and to make our world a better place.

I feel immensely proud to be the Headteacher of a school whose identity is so strong, where the children feel that they all belong in our safe, caring and nurturing environment and that learning is inspired by our dedicated team of staff. I have great ambitions for the school, the education it offers to our pupils and the role we all have in enabling children to grow into independent, successful and conscientious citizens of society.

I look forward to welcoming you to St. Peter’s Academy and sharing with you what makes it a very special place of learning for all our pupils.

Will Stevens

Headteacher