‘Being the best that we can be in a thriving community, following the example of Jesus and achieving fullness of life’
‘Achievement for All, Learning Together, Learning for Life’
Along with the vision, our core values of Love, Strength, Wisdom and Trust underpin everything we do at East Hoathly. In Matthew 19:26 & John 10:10, Jesus tells us He came to give us life in all its fullness and all things are possible with God, and we believe that we help give children the best start in their education by giving them the values, confidence & stepping stones they need to enjoy all the opportunities life has to offer. As a Christian school, we believe that children live their best lives when they know they are loved and being loving; shown how to use their strengths and wisdom so they can continuously work hard and strive for high achievements and are taught that being honest and trustworthy and living their lives by God’s example can lead to ‘life-long learning’ and positive change. Our purpose at East Hoathly is for all children to achieve their true potential, lead happy and fulfilled lives and contribute positively to their communities and wider world, experiencing ‘life in its fullness’.
All 4 values have specific biblical references as their origins which are intertwined into the rules & ethos of East Hoathly School.
Love: ‘Let all that you do be done with love’
In Corinthians 16:14, Paul signifies to us, that the whole of the obedience to Christ, should spring from, and be done in love to Him.
Our East Hoathly rules link specifically with this biblical reference, explaining that we should ‘Be kind and respectful to all members of the school community’.
Strength: ‘Be strong & courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for Lord your God will be with you wherever you go’
Joshua 1:9, reminds us that God is with us, therefore we can be ‘strong and courageous’ as we pursue his calling in our life and help us face hard things with ‘faith and confidence’. Life can be full of challenges, sorrows, and tough decisions. But even amidst hardship, the Lord asks us to be ‘strong and courageous’.
Our East Hoathly rules link specifically with this biblical reference, explaining that ‘We are resilient, brave and aims to be the best that we can be’.
Wisdom: ‘Let us learn together what is good’
Job 34:4, tells us to use the power of choice to do what's right and to learn from it. Elihu – ‘Teach me what I do not see [in regard to how I have sinned]; If I have done wrong (injustice, unrighteousness), I will not do it again'?
Our East Hoathly rules link specifically with this biblical reference, explaining that 'We are creative learners and continuously strive for high achievements’.
Truth: ‘And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’
In John 8:32, Jesus tells us "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free". Through faith in him and following his teaching, we can have true freedom.
Our East Hoathly rules link specifically with this biblical reference, explaining that 'We are honest, positive thinkers and live our lives by God’s example’.
East Hoathly Vision Song
In all that we do, show respect for all.
In our community, be kind to all.
Resilient and strong, show bravery
Aim to be the best we can be.
At East Hoathly, love others, be true.
At East Hoathly, show your strength in all you do.
At East Hoathly, let your wisdom shine through.
Pray to God in all you do.
We aim high in all our learning.
Creative and fun, while enjoying.
Be honest and true, keep positive.
By God’s example we live.
We link our school rules and expectations directly with our 4 school values:
We are kind and respectful towards all members of the school community.
We are resilient, brave and aim to be the best that we can be. We are kind and respectful towards all members of the school.
We are creative learners and continuously strive for high achievements. We work hard and progress in our learning. We develop our knowledge through making purposeful connections between subjects and have a strong understanding of our previous learning and where it is going in the future.
We are honest, positive thinkers and live our lives by God’s example.
Weekly values certificates are presented to children from all classes - the values traits are developed by pupils in each class- see examples of weekly certificates on the main values display in school entrance.
Awe and Wonder Day
On Friday 2nd February we came together for Awe and Wonder Day. We had the opportunity to work with other children from across the school and reflected on our school values and the bible stories we link with them. Inspired by Chris Knott’s visit from Starfish Malawi, we spent the day exploring different methods of storytelling. For some of us, we really stepped out of our comfort zone to experiment with something new and had great fun doing it!
To tell the story of Solomon asks for Wisdom, linked with our value of Wisdom, we worked with Mrs Briley, Mr Brett & Mrs Thompson to create comic strips. Using our own imagery alongside speech and thought bubbles really encouraged us to focus on how Solomon must have felt throughout.
For our value of Love, we worked with Miss Howes to really hone in on our dramatic skills and acted out the story of The Good Samaritan. We had to use our value of Love throughout to be respectful and kind to one another, particularly when performing in front of one another as this was quite nerve wracking!
Whilst pulling on our skills of speaking and staying positive, we created spoon puppets to tell The Story of Ruth to share our value of Strength. Working with Miss Goymer & Mrs Twinn, we got creative with mixed media to create the different characters in the story and shared how we thought strength is shown.
Finally, for the value of Truth, we worked with Mrs Bastin, Miss Evans and Mrs Robinson to tell the story of The Annunciation. We used our skills of teamwork and creativity to shape characters out of plasticine to build our own stop motion films. We discussed how, although sometimes telling the truth can be hard, overall it is better to be honest.We are hoping to share some of our stories with Starfish Malawi soon!
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Our Values stories – where do our values come from and how can we use the Bible to help us to understand how these should shape our choices?
Awe & Wonder Day – Vision & Values
We held a Vision and Values focused Awe & Wonder Day where we looked at the biblical theology behind our school vision. We started by thinking about the bible passage in which it states: “With God all things are possible” Matthew 19:36 and how this encourages us to think about God’s teachings and values.
The children were then split into key stage groups to rotate around different workshops which would encourage us to think about the stories behind our values and how the messages within these can impact on our everyday lives.
Nursery also took part in the day, spending time learning about our value of love, the story of the Good Samaritan, and how he helped others. They acted out the story and thought about being good friends.
In the art workshop the children created art pieces centred around each of the values. Each group focused on a different value, discussing the story from which it came, what it meant to the children as individuals and how we might show it within our community. We then experimented with different techniques to create our masterpieces!
In another group, we considered the value of Wisdom. We read the story ‘Soloman asks God for Wisdom.’ Then we talked about the different ways we use our knowledge and wisdom in everyday life.
When we focused on the value of strength through the story of Ruth. We learnt how Ruth persevered and showed the value of strength by staying with her mother in law Naomi. The children collated words that mean ‘strength’. They then used these words to create acrostic poetry for the words Ruth and strength.
Father Jeremy also ran a workshop helping us to think about how we are the stones that build our path and our road in life. The children created their own stone gift, sharing the strengths that they each bring and give to our school community. This helped them to think about the path they are taking and what they contribute.
You can also see our fantastic learning from this day on display in our conservatory waiting room.
School Values
In Forest School this week, children in Year 5 and 6 chose to re-create the school’s 4 new values on the Forest floor. They recalled the 4 values – Love, Strength, Wisdom and Truth – and created designs using the symbols we associate with them.
It was great to see the children engaging with the new school values in such a creative way!
Vision and Values
We look forward to using some stories from the Bible to help us to explore the vision and values further later in the term.
Vision and Values Update
September 2020: We are currently renewing and revising our school vision and the values that lead and support policy and ethos within the school.
On 12th September 2020, our school Ethos Committee met to discuss the vision and values and how we can ensure they are clear, succinct and fully endorse the ethos of East Hoathly school. Our Ethos Committee consist of Miss Lewis (Head of School), Mrs Healy (RE Lead and Assistant Head), Reverend Phil, Lindsay Wiggens (Governor), Jan Gough (Governor and experienced SIAMs inspector), Mandy Watson (Governor and Senior School Improvement Advisor for the Diocese of Chichester) and the role of the committee is to promote the Ethos vision and values of the school.
During the meeting, the committee agreed on the teaching from the Bible that we wanted to capture in order to create new values for the school, and then defined these using quotes from the Bible:
From this point, SLT within the school began to consider the wording of the federation. For this, we considered what was most important for us to ensure is clear about the vision for our school. We used some wording from the current vision and took inspiration from the Church of England’s vision for education. The vision for East Hoathly then became:
In our Church school, we learn through our values of Love, Strength, Wisdom and Truth. We aim for the highest standards and believe that by building a strong community, we can take care of everyone’s wellbeing, achieving fullness of life.
“With God all things are possible” Matthew 19:26
On Tuesday 29th September 2020, Mrs Healy introduced the new draft vision and values to the parents. Parents were invited to comment on how well the vision and values support the ethos of the school, how they thought the vision and values could be introduced to children, and how they thought links to the Bible could be further explored.
