Spiritual Development

"Together We Thrive"

Recognising its historic foundations, Pluckley Church of England Primary School preserves and develops its religious character in accordance with the principles of the Church of England and in partnership with the Church at parish and diocesan level.

The school aims to serve its community by providing an education of the highest quality within the context of Christian belief and practice. It encourages an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith, and promotes Christian values through the experience it offers to all its pupils.

Our school Christian values are made explicit and are deeply embedded in the daily life of the school. All members of the school community articulate the distinctively Christian characteristics of the school’s values and the significant impact they have on the daily lives and achievements of learners.

These underpin school improvement as they represent a code of conduct for everything that we do within school. The children and staff understand and embed these values in their learning and behaviour.

At Pluckley Church of England Primary School we utilise the ‘Windows, Mirrors, Doors’ strategy designed by Liz Mills to broaden and deepen understanding about spiritual learning. Through our use of this strategy we will encourage children to think about inspirational experiences, challenge them to ask searching questions and prompt them to consider some possible opportunities for response.

The Window - Looking Out

The window symbolises ‘looking out’ at the ‘Ows’ or ‘Wows’ of life; things that are ‘awe-full’ and make us wonder and be grateful and things that are ‘awful’ and make us wonder and ask questions. In this stage, children are taught about or asked to recall inspirational or significant people and events that have demonstrated the ‘theme' or 'value' in action.  

Mirrors - Looking In

The mirror invites children to reflect, alone and together, to ‘look inside’ and to be honest about some challenging questions concerning their own attitudes and actions.  During this stage, we often focus our thoughts on our REFLECT values - our guiding principles - which are embedded into our daily life in terms of our conduct and approach to our learning and to each other. We link these principles to our Collective Worship, to Bible stories and to our behaviour policy and our rewards system.

Doors - Looking Ahead

The door points ahead to the impact that the children’s journey of reflection might have on the way they live their lives. It is about the possibility of change and resolving to do something practical that will bring change about.

In the right soil, every single seed can grow and achieve its God given potential.

Mark 4 : 3-8