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Home Page St John's CE Thornham Primary School Love 2 Learn N Love 1 Another
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Why Our School is Special

St. John’s CE is very friendly and caring school with high standards of teaching and learning and a collective belief that our children can be whoever they want to be now and in the future. We provide education for children aged four to eleven years of age. We have a PAN of 30 children in each year group with some of the year groups together in one mixed class. Explorers class- Reception, Creators class- Year 1, Discoverers class- Year 2 and Year 3, Inventors class- Year 4 and Year 5 and Adventurers class- Year 6. It is our aim to provide a stimulating environment in which each child can develop fully as an individual. We will help all pupils develop their personal and social skills and achieve their full academic potential. We encourage them to be independent and resourceful and to value and consider the needs and feelings of others.

 

We are proud of our inclusive approach to learning throughout the school, catering for individual children’s needs. The whole family is important and we take time to help and support each child in all their learning needs. Our teachers and teaching assistants work together in a supportive team, ensuring that basic skills are taught effectively whilst providing an exciting, creative approach to the whole curriculum. We encourage first hand learning experiences and aim for every child to be engaged and motivated in their learning. We take pride in our children's achievements and continually celebrate the learning journey they are on assured that they leave our school with the knowledge, skills and confidence for their next steps in learning. 


Our school dates back to 1849 when Reverend Dumford established the school to provide education for the growing community. We love to research and celebrate our schools history. The school building  is a combination of an old Victorian Building with additional modern buildings which provide a fantastic learning environment for our children and staff.  We have beautiful school grounds surrounded by farmers fields with a view up to Tandle Hill and down to St. John's Church.  Our school grounds are a valuable learning space too and support teaching and learning across all areas of the curriculum including Forest Schools, as well as enrichment activities such as gardening, den building, bird watching and additional sports. We encourage staff to take children to explore our local environment walking up to Tandle Hill, Hopwood Woods and exploring the Church grounds. We also like to take the children on educational visits linked to their current learning to enable them to have real hands on experiences of the world around them. 

 

Music plays a large part in the life of the school, with daily singing in Collective Worship, additional music lessons, termly Church Services and celebrations as well as having our own school choir. Every child is involved in a school production each year with Explorers leading our Nativity, our KS1 children taking part in a Summer production and our older children performing in an end of year production. We thoroughly enjoy taking part in Dance competitions and performances at various venues across Rochdale and take teams to represent school in various sporting events organised by Rochdale Borough School Games Partnership and Middleton School Sports.

 

We have been accredited with the Healthy Schools’ Enhanced Status award for the second time which commends our focus on Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and the provision for Emotional Well- Being for children and staff. We were one of the first schools to receive the Planet Savers Award in 2022 from Manchester Diocese for our Eco work, treasuring the world around us and preserving it for future generations. The Level 5 Outstanding award for our community garden in Middleton In Bloom was awarded by The RHS in Summer 2023. In September 2023 school were awarded with the Primary Science Quality Mark for improving Teaching and Learning raising the profile of Science and children's aspirations for STEM. 

 

Each half term we focus on one of our school values and through our daily Collective Worship we look at the value and link it to the stories Jesus told as well as focusing on celebrations of different faiths and cultures, Global issues as well as British Values. We encourage and support children to make connections between God’s work and how that links to their own life. We encourage our children to share their ideas and point of views and our children's groups give an additional platform to facilitate this.

 

We hope that our website will give you a hint of what our school is all about, but this can never replace first-hand experience. Therefore, we would encourage you to come and see us in action and speak to our staff and children yourself and really get to feel the atmosphere of our school. Contact the school office to arrange a visit.

 

The Christmas Festivities have begun with lots of additional activities and events for our children to experience! Don't forget to check the Autumn dates for things happening in school time and after school too!
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