Move forward. Do it properly. Be kind.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
We’ve had those nine words on the wall for years and we’ve never found a reason to change them. They cover most situations. If you’re stuck, they’ll usually tell you what to do next.
Move forward
Things go wrong. You fall out with your mate, you get a sum wrong, the trip gets rained off. What matters is what you do next. We don’t dwell, we don’t sulk and we don’t give up. We learn from it and we get going again.
Do it properly
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Your handwriting, your kindness, your festival. Half a job isn’t a job. We want our children to be proud of what they’ve done, because they know they’ve done it right.
Be kind
Not just to your friends. To the new kid, the dinner staff, the visitor who’s lost, and to yourself on a bad day. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do and it changes everything.
Underneath them sits #daretodream. Not a slogan. A habit. We ask our children to want more for themselves than the world sometimes expects of them, and then we back them.
What we believe
Strong relationships, a sense of belonging and high expectations. Everything we do comes back to one of those three.
Children learn best when they feel safe and known. They rise to what’s expected of them when the expectations are high and the adults believe they’ll get there. And they’ll take a risk, have a go and get things wrong if they know nobody’s going to make them feel small for it.
So we give them experiences. Lots of them. Trips, visitors, stages, festivals, a coffee shop to run. Confidence isn’t taught in a lesson. It’s built by doing things you weren’t sure you could do, in a place where people have your back.
How we behave
We don’t manage behaviour with shouting, sanctions charts or traffic lights. We do it with relationships.
Three expectations for everyone, children and adults alike. Kind. Ready. Safe.
When something goes wrong, we talk about it. What happened, who was affected, how we put it right. Children are held to account, but they’re never written off. It’s why visitors so often tell us our children are the politest and most welcoming they’ve met.
What we live by
These are the things we expect of ourselves. Children, staff, families.
Love. We care about our children like they’re our own. That’s not a figure of speech.
Trust. We trust our children and staff to make good decisions, and we give them the room to.
Tolerance. Everyone’s welcome. Everyone’s different. That’s the point.
Honesty. We tell the truth, including when it’s hard to hear.
Empathy. We try to understand what’s going on for someone before we decide what to do about it.
Courage. We have a go. We stand on stages. We say the hard thing. We admit when we’re wrong.
Kindness. The first thing we ask of anyone here. The last thing we’d give up.
Respect. For each other, for our building, for our town.
Consistency. The same calm adults, the same expectations, every day. Children need to know what they’re going to get.
Not just for the children
These values run right through the building. They’re how we treat our staff. They’re how we work with families. They’re why we built Strive, so our community had somewhere that felt like it belonged to them.
If you come and visit, you’ll see them before anyone points them out. That’s how you know they’re real.