Mission and Ethos
''God is love, and he who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him''
(1 Jn 4:16)
Our mission is to provide an excellent Catholic education for all our students which enables them to respond to the call of Christ throughout their lives. Caritas - the love which comes from God and works through us, expressed with joy - is golden thread running through everything we do. We welcome and accept all our students and staff as unique individuals created in the image of God. We treat one another with kindness and respect. We are a community of Caritas where everyone feels safe, supported and inspired to make a difference in our local, national and global communities. We strive for the highest quality of learning and teaching that inspires us all to discover and develop our God-given gifts and talents, to excel in the present and aim high for the future.
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Our Values
Caritas
All we do at our Christian school is modelled on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. He taught us that the greatest commandment is to love your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and that the second is to love your neighbour as yourself. Everything we do – our work, our play, our acts of worship – is for the greater glory of God. We also love one another. That means that we look after each other, reject all forms of anti social behaviour, including bullying, and take pride in how we present ourselves and our community.
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Excellence
All of our staff and students are children of God and have been made in His image. We all have god given talents and it is our responsibility (and our joy) to discover these and develop them to the full. We strive for excellence in all that we do – in our teaching, our learning, our physical and creative pursuits. Though we have different starting points we strive to be the best that we can be. We measure that through the progress that we make.
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Together
We are a community because we support each other and do things – pray, work, play, eat – together. No one gets left behind.
God has created me to do Him
some definite service.
He has committed some work to me,
which He has not committed to another.
I am a link in a chain,
a bond of connection between persons.
He has not created me for naught.
I shall do good I shall do His work.
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
A mediation
Anti-racism at CNCS
At Cardinal Newman Catholic school we are a community of equals driven by the principles of Catholic social teaching. We are on a journey to become an anti-racist school.
“Racism is a virus that quickly mutates and instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting. Instances of racism continue to shame us, for they show that our supposed social progress is not as real or definitive as we think.”
Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti 97
We acknowledge that historically, schools have not always recognised the unique experiences and challenges faced by students and staff of colour and our aim is to ensure that all people of colour feel heard and safe in our school.
Steps we have taken so far on our journey:
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Created an anti-racism group and Equalities Ambassadors to give students a voice and a platform to make change within the school.
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Started work on decolonising and diversifying our curriculum.
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Developed a policy on dealing with prejudice-based incidents informed by students of colour and student Equality groups.
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Integrated staff anti-racism training as part of our CPD programme.
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Signed up to the Halo hair policy.
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Developed a well-established peer mentoring programme for students of colour focused on academic excellence and building confidence.
Catholic schools are places of prayer, nurture and learning. We are aware that we have a long way to go and that mistakes will be made but our commitment to anti-racism is firm; we want to learn and grow and create a thriving, safe community for all of our students.
2023 Vision Statement
Cardinal Newman Catholic School is dedicated to achieving Excellence for all. Our vision is to create a joyful community of Caritas where Together we support, inspire and care for one another, placing Christ at the centre of all that we do. We will achieve this through:
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Excellent 4-19 Catholic education and experience
Removing barriers to excellence
Developing leadership at all levels in an exceptional Catholic environment
Spiritual, physical, on-line