Our core purpose defines what we stand for and what we promise to deliver to our children and school community.

At Oak tree Primary School and Nursery, we have a very simple core purpose:

To develop well rounded, confident and responsible individuals who aspire to achieve their full potential. We will do this by providing a welcoming, safe, and supportive learning environment which is underpinned by our 4 curriculum drivers and which promotes our take care values.

School Values:

Our values are the things that are most important to us and define the way in which we conduct ourselves. Our Take Care values are each broken down into the behaviours we aim to see in our children. We have a reward system that recognises and celebrates children's conduct and behaviour linked to our school values. Our values are featured regularly in assemblies and embedded within class-based learning opportunities.

This is underpinned by 4 Curriculum Drivers that apply to our whole school community:

To ensure the content of the curriculum meets the needs of our children as well as fulfils statutory requirements, we have established a set of Oak Tree ‘Curriculum Drivers’, these are the factors and values that shape our curriculum. They are based on the needs of our children, our school values and our location. We have threaded our children’s needs through the statutory curriculum.

We have prioritised the following four curriculum drivers that will shape our unique curriculum. They drive the aims and values of our school, and will respond to the particular needs of our children and community. They help us to shape our curriculum and therefore the opportunities we offer the children.

• Resilient Individuals – Oak Tree children will become resilient in order to deal with different challenges across the curriculum and the wider world. They will develop the ability to solve problems without giving up. Developing the skills to work independently and to be resourceful.

Take Care of ourselves

•Possibilities – we will build their aspirations so they know available possibilities for their future lives; have role models and aspire to be the best they can be.

Take Care of ourselves

•World citizens, Our children will develop an understanding about where they live and the wider world. Understand about their role in society and develop respect for the environment as well as all communities and religions. Every child at Oak Tree will be able to make a positive difference in the wider world.    

Take-Care of our world and Take Care of each other

•Respectful communicators – our children will develop the skills to work well with other people from all walks of life, they will know how to speak and listen with respect in different situations. A love of language will be instilled and we will offer every opportunity to expand vocabulary through talk, reading and debating.

Take Care of each other

Oak Tree Vision Statement

At Oak Tree Primary School and Nursery we concentrate our intentions on our school pledge:

We are a ‘TAKE CARE’ school, where we: Take care of ourselves, each other, the world and with our work.

The school’s work and vision is based on five core values of:

• Take Care

• Aspire

• Integrity

• Work Hard

• Be Proud

We believe these are clear statements of intent that keeps us focused on what is important and allows us to be judged in terms of attaining the levels of effectiveness that our principals challenge us to achieve. Oak Tree Primary and Nursery School aims to improve the life chances of all children through providing a caring, positive and stimulating environment in which children feel supported as individuals and able to achieve their very best.

Together in Achievement: Parents/Carers as partners and working alongside outside agencies/experts for the benefit of our community.

For children: Recognition and emphasis of our primary focus. The driving force and guiding principal we return to each time we adapt and refresh our approaches and strategies.

Oak Tree Primary School and Nursery Pledge:

''I pledge to Take Care as I go Through my Day

I pledge to show Integrity in every single way

I pledge to Work Hard and always do my best

I pledge to Aspire to my dreams and put myself to the test

I pledge to Be Proud of all I do

I pledge to Take Care of me and you''

We recognise that in schools such as ours, which are lacking in diversity in their own population, it is doubly important that the very wall paper of the school reflects a global, social picture. Through our interactions with our children, it is our aim to build diversity in to the fabric of what we teach and indeed, the whole school culture. At Oak Tree, we are at the beginning of this journey, we have identified a pressing and very real need and are taking steps to address it.

Fundamentally, we need a greater visibility of marginalised groups at Oak Tree and initially, we can do this in two ways; through the language we teach and use and through our displays.

Many of our children are from the same ethnic group, as such, we have even more of a duty to ‘demystify’ other cultures. In essence, we want to ‘usualise’ diversity at Oak Tree, not have it as an ‘add on’ but instead, create a day to day reality of the wider world we live in.

By usualise, we mean to open up the possibilities for acceptance and celebration of diversity, by those who do not experience diversity very often.

We know we need to show our less diverse intake what diversity looks like in the rest of the world.  For us, this means that when we create displays about writers, scientists or name our classrooms after authors, we show people of all backgrounds in those roles. We aim to make classroom and corridor displays that value and promote diversity and to ensure they are representative, regardless of our intake, whilst at the same time, striving towards showing students who may be a minority in our school, that they belong and are part of the fabric of Oak Tree.

The first step in this plan is to ask ourselves questions of our school and our curriculum; these will form the basis of our diversity action plan.

1. What visible commitment does the school have to diversity and inclusion?
2. What does the website tell us about the diverse culture of the school?
3. Are our values, specifically around diversity and inclusion, lived through all areas of school life or just lip service?
4. What does the curriculum include that shows a commitment to diversity and inclusion?
5. What does the wider curriculum commit to in developing a diverse culture?