We take pride in our inclusivity – it is a key part of our vision. You do not need to be a Christian to come to All Saints’ – many of our families belong to other faiths, or have no faith. Parents have told us that they are keen for their child to receive an education grounded in Christian values, without necessarily being Christians themselves. One of the values we teach is Respect – and this includes respecting other people’s beliefs and views.

To find out more, please visit our Vision and Values page

Collective Worship lasts for about 30 minutes each day. It is a time when we all gather together as a school. We welcome a wide range of speakers and mark special events throughout the year, not just Christmas and Easter, but also Harvest, Remembrance Day, Epiphany and many more. Each half term we focus on a particular value, which we explore through stories, singing, prayer and activities. It is made very clear that children only say ‘Amen’ if they wish to make a prayer their own.

To find out more, please see ‘The Pattern of Collective Worship at All Saints’ – 2023-2024’

Religious Education is very important in a Church school – so important that we asked our children how they viewed it and in response we re-named it at All Saints’ as ‘Beliefs, Religions and Values Education’ – or BRAVE for short. We are ‘up-front’ that this is a Christian School – and we hope that this would be obvious to any visitor – but we do not just teach Christianity: we want our children to develop a knowledge and understanding of a wide range of religions, so that in later life they will be able to make informed decisions and help build a strong society. We know that many of our pupils go on to study RE at GCSE, and we are proud that secondary school teachers have told us that our former pupils stand out because of their knowledge and their ability to question and test ideas.

To find out more, please visit our BRAVE page

Our Church links

CE stands for Church of England – like very many English schools, our school was founded by the Church of England in the 19th century, to extend the benefits of education to all. We are pleased that our links with All Saints Church, just round the corner, continue to this day; not only is the vicar one of our governors and a regular visitor in school, but the Church kindly allows us to visit to hold special whole-school services several times a year, when all families are very welcome to attend. In 2018, All Saints’ joined the St Edmundsbury Diocesan Multi-Academy Trust (MAT), because it shares our values and our focus upon providing children with the best possible education.

To find out more, please visit our Ethos and Aims page and the MAT website

SIAMS

As well as being inspected by OFSTED, CE schools are also examined by the ‘Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools’ (SIAMS). Under our last SIAMS inspection All Saints’ was judged to be outstanding.

SIAMs is now moving away from making an overall judgement (such as the old classifications of ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’), and from this year, schools will be measured on how well they meet 7 criteria:

1. how the school’s theologically rooted Christian vision enables pupils and adults to flourish
2. how the curriculum reflects the school’s theologically rooted Christian vision
3. how Collective Worship is enabling pupils and adults to flourish spiritually
4. how the School vision creates a culture in which everybody is treated well
5. how the School vision creates an active culture of justice and responsibility
6. how the Religious Education curriculum is effective
7. the quality of the Religious Education

At All Saints’ we are committed to being the best Church School we can be – this means living by our values and constantly reviewing our performance to check that we are supporting all school members – children, staff, families and volunteers – to meet the demands of life in this particular place and time. We are looking forward to the challenge and feedback from our next SIAMs inspection!

To find out more, please visit the SIAMS Inspections page on the Church of England website.