Excellent SIAMS Grading
In July, 2019, we were graded as an excellent church school following our successful SIAMS inspection (the highest award possible). SIAMS stands for Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools. All Church of England schools are visited regularly by a lead inspector to evaluate the key question: How effective is the school's distinctive Christian vision, established and promoted by leadership at all levels, in enabling all pupils and adults to flourish?
As part of the process, the inspector looked in detail at seven strands, including the school vision and leadership, the progress of pupils (especially in RE), our relationship with the community, opportunities for all members of the school community to explore their spirituality, and our impact as global citizens.
We received an overall grade of Excellent, and were also judged to be Good in the effectiveness of our Religious Education and the impact of Collective Worship. A new framework came into force in September 2018, which makes it far more challenging for schools to achieve this highest grade. We are one of the first school in the Diocese of Derby to have been inspected under this new framework and to have been rewarded the excellent grading.
Further information on the SIAMS inspection can be found
here.
Our full inspection report can be read
here.
Balanced System: Scheme for School Accreditation
At St Chad's, all staff are committed to supporting children’s speech, language and communication needs. In March, 2019, we became an accredited school in recognition of the work that we do support our children's speech, language and communication. We are immensely proud of our achievement as it particularly recognises the strong home-school partnerships that we value and the close relationships that we form with our families.
The Balanced System® Scheme for Schools is a whole system approach to improving outcomes for children and young people across the range of speech, language and communication needs. The scheme has been created in response to schools’ demand for a strategic approach to understanding their role in commissioning and providing support for speech, language and communication needs.
Scheme for Schools provides an overarching set of outcomes, processes and outcome measures across the core five strands of the Balanced System®: supporting parents, young people and families; enhancing and adapting the environment; developing the workforce; identifying need; and providing appropriate intervention.
Further information about Scheme for Schools and our accreditation can be found here.
Sing Up! Platinum Award
We are recognised by Sing Up! as a Platinum Award School. Music had always played an important part in school life and award recognises and celebrates our school's commitment to offering high quality singing to every child in our care.
Singing truly is at the heart of school life at St Chad's. Singing plays an important part in all significant events during the school year. Special festivals and events like Christmas, National Sing Up Day, Harvest, collective worship and our Year 2 Leavers’ Assembly are always celebrated with song. Each year, all of our children are given the opportunity to perform to an audience on a regular basis. We have a very large and active choir who host an annual evening performance in school to parents and members of the local community. Our choir even help to bring some Christmas cheer to shoppers in Tesco's through their annual Christmas showcase!
Singing is encouraged not only as a musical skill and a cross-curricular tool, but as an activity which enables everyone in school, regardless of their ability, background or role to have fun and smile!
Further details on Sing Up! can we found here.
Basic Skills Quality Mark
The Basic Skills Quality Mark is an award that celebrates and supports continuous improvement in literacy and numeracy. It is awarded to a setting or school to recognise their provision, practice and performance in literacy and numeracy, and is valid for three years. A school or setting must demonstrate a whole school approach to improving standards in literacy and numeracy, with evidence of the impact of its approaches.
In March 2019, we were once again awarded the Basic Skills Quality mark for our continued endeavours to ensure that the core skills of Literacy and Numeracy are pushing up standards across the school.
Further information on the Basic Skills Quality Mark can be found here.