At Sleights, our school vision is:
This document shows a summary of our vision and values review (September 2025), where the school community considered our work and its theological roots:
A review of our vision and values (September 2025)
To define our vision and school approach, the whole school staff and members of the governing body came together to review and redefine vision, values and aims. The session began with each member of the team involved identifying their individual reasons for working at Sleights. This provided a broad spectrum of backgrounds, motivation and recognition of all.
They might have life, and have it abundantly
Unpacking the Church of England’s Vision for Education was our starting point and exploring what is mean by the deeply Christian vision, with the promise by Jesus of “life in its fullness” at its heart.
To support our discussions and review of the vision, values and aims, we also explored the four key areas of the Church of England’s vision.
Educating for wisdom, knowledge and skills
Educating for hope and aspiration
Educating for community and living well together
Educating for dignity and respect
Redefining our vision
Before the review process, the school vision was to “Help each child flourish”. Using this starting point, staff discussed and agreed that the school’s work was wider than just the children. Admitting a child onto the school roll is actually admitting a whole family into the school community. This idea introduced the language of together.
An essential aspect of the vision, agreed by all staff, was that our school community should be happy. Rooted in the teachings of the Bible, the idea of flourishing within our Church School completed the new vision.
Those that be planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God
Our Christian Values
The need to underpin every aspect of our school’s work with Christian Values is essential. Recognising and understanding the importance of these values was equally important. With this in mind and our agreed vision now in place, we explored a wide range of different Christian Values and used a diamond nine activity to identify those that we felt were must crucial in supporting us achieve our goals. As a result of our discussions and the needs we felt our families had, perseverance, respect and trust were identified.
Perseverance
I can do all things through him who strengthens me
Philippians, 4:13
An observation by many staff is that our children have difficulties in self-belief and working through something when it is difficult. Given that our school vision is driven by developing happy, successful and flourishing learners, instilling a culture of perseverance was recognised as a must!
Respect
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you
Matthew 7:12
As a Church school, we value all God’s children. Promoting respect for yourself and others encapsulates this sense and belief of value. Knowing that our children lack belief in themselves, teaching all stakeholders to value and respect everyone equally will enable everyone to be happy, succeed and flourish.
Trust
My God is my strength in whom I trust
Psalm 18:2
We believe that educating and working with the whole community is essential to ensuring happiness and success. A shared commitment to working together and trusting families and schools equally is rooted firmly in our work. With this partnership, children will benefit from a trusting relationship, focused on achieving the very best for all.
We undertook a significant body of work with children and all stakeholders to explore these values further. In our hall, we proudly display these values and key ideas around them, for example, how the children view the value as being important to them and how living these out will help them have better lives.