Pupils’ spiritual development is shown by their:

beliefs, religious or otherwise, which inform their perspective on life and their interest in and respect for different people’s feelings and values

sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning about themselves, others and the world around them, including the intangible

use of imagination and creativity in their learning

willingness to reflect on their experiences.

Christ-centred mission statement

Our school’s mission statement is based on Christian values and principles:

“As a Church of England School we seek to provide a Christian education for the children of the parish of St. Peter’s London Docks

and for those who elect to come to our school. Children are presented with the teachings of the Christian faith as the revelation of

God’s truth and are encouraged to grow in that faith, respecting the beliefs and cultures of others. Education is seen as being

concerned with excellence in learning and for the spiritual and social growth of children, developing the individual potential of each

child to the fullest.”

Bright Beginnings, Faith for the Future

Every day at St Peter’s Primary School, the staff & governors work to make sure that St Peter’s children:

have respect for themselves and others

are enthusiastic, enquiring learners

know what it feels like to have done their best and achieve

understand the value of prayer and its place in their lives

understand the importance of goodness, honesty, and hard work

have a clear set of values; understanding their rights and responsibilities

have the skills and opportunity to work collaboratively

have shared friendship & learned how to get along well with other people

have happy memories of their time with us

have aspirations to embrace every opportunity to further their education, knowledge, skills and interests, throughout their

live

St Peter’s LIGHT Values

Love

Inspiration

Grace

Hope

Truth

Goodness

Joy

Friendship

Collaboration

Service

Self-discipline

Thankfulness

Faith

Belief

Reverence

Creativity

Courage

Encouragement

Ambition

Kindness

Forgiveness

Peace

Humility

Compassion

Consideration

Politeness

Resilience

Patience

Confidence

Perseverance

Enthusiasm

Faithfulness

Diligence

Respect

Honesty

Justice

Stewardship

Wisdom

Trustworthiness

Peacemaker

St Peter’s Procession

Every year on 29 June we hold St Peter’s Procession; we walk around the streets of Wapping, carrying statues and

banners and singing praises to God. The whole school and parents then attend a solemn mass.

As part of the St Peter’s procession, every year group creates a big display related to the Bible. The St Peter’s church

then holds a flower competition for the best floral display for each pictures.

Harvest Festival – We scare the Hunger! Every year in September we hold a whole school Harvest festival where we thank God for blessing us with harvest and food to eat. We link up with our local food bank, knowing that many food banks in London are running out of stock after long summer holidays during which families couldn't rely on free school meals for their children. We explain that to our pupils through assemblies and class work, emphasising how privileged we are to have enough and how important it is to share our blessing with those in need. Every year there is an incredible response; we are almost "flooded" with food and toiletries and the Tower Hamlets food bank needed lots of crates to take it all away!

The Harvest Festival was also our local project for the WE Charity, which we support through our local project

(Harvest festival) and an international project (adopting a village in Ecuador). WE Charity teaches children to think

globally and fight social injustice.

Shrove Tuesday

In February we celebrate the Shrove Tuesday in a traditional British style – with Pancake races! Again we ask for a donation and this time the money goes to Ecuador to support the needy children and their families, just as it says in the Bible: “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ (Matthew 25:44-45)

Christmas at St Peter’s

Christmas is the time when we celebrate that Jesus was born as the light of the world to save us from our sins. It’s a

family celebration and at our school we invite families for the festivities! We have a Christmas fete where children

sell their art and craft, EYFS & Y1 present a Nativity play, Y2 does a nativity at St Peter’s church and KS2 organise a

Christmas concert. On top of that our wonderful creative staff create Santa’s grotto which is hugely popular by all

the families during the fete!

Easter at St Peter’s

At Easter we learn about Jesus’ last days and why He died on the cross. It is also the time when we enjoy lots of

lovely British traditions such as the Pancake races or decorating Easter bonnets.

Opportunities for prayers and reflection

The pupils and staff are given an opportunity to express religious reflection and spiritual practices during collective

worship assemblies and weekly mass; we also have a prayer corner outside the hall with a prayer box. Everyone is

invited to write a prayer request and put it in a special box and then the school priest, prays for all these needs.

At the end of the day we also say our school prayer, written by Father Jones:

Heavenly Father, bless our school,

All who serve, all who learn,

All who teach and all who work in this place.

Make this a happy community where we may learn to serve you and one another.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

My child told me about the prayer box and

sounded very excited and confident that

somebody is taking it seriously. What a lovely idea!

(Parent)

Proverbs in Religions

Our last RE rolling program focused on “Proverbs in Religions”.

Our School Development Plan for 2016/17 was titled

“Proverbs, Problems, Possibilities” and we focused on

overcoming obstacles, gaining wisdom and reaching high.

Each class has chosen a proverb from a world religion

(Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and native religions) and during five weeks we explored

its meaning and also how we can learn from it and become better people. The children greatly enjoyed discussing

the proverbs and some parents commented on what their children said about them at home!

Learning about other religions and cultures

Although we are a Christian school, we are a multi-cultural and multi-religious school. We teach about other

religions and other festivals as well and we aim to promote mutual understanding and respect.

Children in Nursery have learnt about the Chinese New Year

and they had a go at writing Chinese letters and numbers.

Y2 pupils studied Judaism and had lots of fun

building a ‘sukkah’ for the Feast of Tabernacles.

It was fun because we had to do it

all by ourselves!

When it is the Festival of

Tabernacles, the Jews celebrate

forty years of walking in the

desert.

I learnt that some people can sleep

in them.

There was a hole in a fabric and I

just popped my finger through it

and Miss squeezed it!

Family trip to St Paul’s Cathedral

(17. 6. 2017)

One of our Saturday’s family trips (“Apples & Pears trip”) took us right

up, up and above London - to the very top of St Paul's cathedral! But

before enjoying the stunning views, we had exercised our architectural skills in the City Centre by building

different kinds of Lego houses in family teams - it was quite a challenge! Having been treated with lovely

cakes as a sweet reward, we went on to explore the City: did you know that Christopher Wren built not

only St Paul's cathedral, but also the Monument and 23 other churches?

We greatly enjoyed a guided tour through St Paul’s Cathedral, learning about its history, identifying the

paintings and its meaning and soaking in the wonderful atmosphere of this house of prayer!

I liked climbing the Dome

because I liked seeing the

view all the way down.

I’ve never been to St Paul’s

Cathedral before. I liked going

upstairs because I had a birds-

eye view of the whole London.

It was cool to have my family

there because I’ve never been

up the stairs and neither have

my parents.

Sense of enjoyment and fascination through Arts

One of our ‘rolling programs’ in 2016-17 was Art. Through a series of lessons the children have learnt to

develop a wide range of art and design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and

space and to use a range of materials creatively to design and make products.

We coloured our

monsters in and we did

the background and

where we used pencils

we covered it with black

to see it – it would be

much clearer!

I liked colouring and I liked

how we did the monsters

because they were all

different and different

colours.

We did it because we had to make big

monsters. We drew the lines, then

coloured the backgrounds. We used a

pencil first and then drew over it with

a black felt tip.

Sense of enjoyment, fascination and pride through our gardening

projects

We run a gardening club once a week during a stay and play. Everyone has the opportunity to join and many

children enjoy feeling the success when they see the fruits (or veggies!) of their labour. For some of them it also

means tasting some new food and exploring different textures and flavours. At the end of the year we went to the

Tower Hamlets town hall to sell our crops!

Later on in the year we were invited to return back for a ‘food market’ – Y4 and Y1 made healthy meals and then

some Y4 representatives practised their marketing skills when selling the food to the Town Hall employees, including

the Mayor of Tower Hamlets!

It was a fulfilling experience which

helped me to see business, marketing

and sales in a new light by taking a

home-made twist to it.

I enjoyed selling the food because it was

fun talking to people and selling things we

made and also meeting the Mayor.

Pets and animals at the school

Living in inner London, the children don’t have many opportunities to interact with ‘creatures great and small’ and

so we aim to give them as many possibilities over the year as possible. There is a very popular fish tank outside the

headteacher’s office, a pond with goldfish in the Foundation Stage playground and a frog pond in KS2. Many

children find watching the fish fascinating and it has got a calming effect on the children.

Once a year we also have chicks in Nursery which gives children the opportunity to explore the lifecycles and marvel

at the world around them. They are also learning to handle them carefully and feed them which help them to

understand the needs of those around them. This year our Nursery children had duck eggs and hatched five little

ducklings! They were well loved by all the other classes (and staff!) and some even cried when it was time to say

goodbye!

We named our ducklings Mickey,

Henny, Daffy, Daisy and Donald.

We learnt a duck dance

called ‘Do The Duck’.

I liked hatching them. We were

waiting a long time.

I liked that they were so cute and I always

wanted to have one as a pet but I already

have a fish at home.

All Creatures Great and Small – learning outside the classrooms

A huge part of our broad curriculum is exploring the world around us, often through the Nature. Many of our pupils

live in flats and can’t therefore have any pets and Zoos are often very expensive. We therefore regularly visit city

farms, zoos and other places where the children can learn about wildlife in an affordable way within supportive

environment.

We were at camping and on the

last day we could touch the

animals. It felt really soft, I

thought it would be scaly.

I liked the love birds

because they were so

small and so tiny and

they looked like babies

but they were actually

adults. And they

tweeted and I like birds

that tweet.

We were doing ponding diping and

looking for little animals. We

found a bit one! Ait was like a

grasshopper, green, big as my

finger.

It tickled me! I felt like I

don’t want to touch it

because it would scare

me but then my friend

encouraged me so I had

a go. I thought it would

be rough but it was

smooth and nice. It felt

like a massage.

Fascination with nature

Y5 went for a one day residential to Epping Forest, where they enjoyed making dens, campfires and lives as man

versus wild!

I liked den making

because we were

allowed to do

whatever we

wanted and it was

fun.

The best part was the bit

when we made a fire

because I never made a

fire before and I never

slept in a tent and it was

fun burning a toast!

The best bit was to touch the snakes because I

was scared of snakes but I touched it and the

fear was gone.

“The Angel Game”

Some classes were playing an “angel game” – each child

picked a name from a hat and they were that pupil’s

“angel” for the duration of Anti-bullying week. The idea

was to secretly serve him/her and take care of his/her

wellbeing. At the end of the week the pupils wrote thank

you messages to their “angels” and to show their

appreciation.

“The angel game” was also played by the staff and there

were many lovely gifts on the staffroom table as well as

positive messages on a golden “Good Deed Feed” display in the staffroom. Many members of staff commented on

the wonderful atmosphere and that they felt closer with each other.

It was exciting and there was a nice

vibe among the staff when everyone

was guessing who their angel is.