Vision, Aims and Values

 

Vision

At Damers First School we strive to nurture an inclusive community of respectful, collaborative learners who are encouraged to constantly achieve their very best. We empower all learners to make valuable contributions both locally and globally and to enjoy and benefit from a lifelong love of learning.

Aims

Values

All of our aims are underpinned by our core values. Our values are very important to us and direct our work every day. They enable us to ensure that we continuously do our best for every child but also for all within and beyond our school community. As a whole school community, we agreed when we met to review these in June 2022, that our values and the way that we focus on these values needed to reflect our learning and experiences from the global pandemic. We now focus on the meaning of these values from four distinct perspectives and our visual representation of these ‘ripples’ when we display a focus value, reminds us of the importance of looking at values through different lenses;

  • Intrapersonal (what this value means to me personally)
  • Interpersonal (how this value can be seen in my relationships with friends, family and familiar adults)
  • Societal (how this value can be seen and shared within our communities)
  • Global (what this value means and looks like in the wider world – global citizenship)

Throughout the school year values are introduced in assemblies and alongside our Jigsaw work but will also be reinforced practically through our everyday provision and a targeted focus on deepening children’s understanding of one of these values each month. They will also be referred to in staff correspondence, newsletters, parent emails and via posters around the school to promote a whole community dialogue.
 

Focus on Values 2022-23

 

September October November December
Courage Resilience Equality
(Tolerance)		 Love

 

January February March April
Integrity
(Rule of Law)		 Kindness Honesty Hope

 

May June July September 23
Justice
(Democracy)		 Gratitude
(Liberty)		 Respect Harmony

These values will be frequently revisited throughout school life and our curriculum has been designed to ensure that our core values are frequently revisited and applied due to their natural link with Harmony principles. Examples include;

Respect
Courage
Equality		 Trust
Honesty
Kindness		 Equality
Resilience		 Hope
Resilience		 Love
Harmony
Gratitude
Courage
Resilience
Hope		 Justice
Integrity
Love
Kindness
Honesty
Respect
Diversity Oneness Cycle Adaptation Health Interdependence

 

The Damers ‘Way of Being’

All of the above should ensure that our children and our community are celebrated as our stated Damers ‘way of being’ …

brave, unique, caring and kind

The Importance of the Damers Logo

Following a consultation with representatives from our whole school community in the spring term 2016 it was agreed that the school logo at that point in time didn’t strongly reflect the ethos, aims and values of our school and would need to be updated before our move. Our new school logo was introduced in September 2016.

So why the butterfly?

Although it was widely agreed that children should be at the heart of the design, it was agreed that this would need to be a symbolic representation in order to avoid stereotypes or a non-inclusive image. The butterfly is an image that was reflected in a number of children’s drawings. We feel that it reflects our ultimate vision, aims and values both as parents and educators and our aspiration to give our children the wings to fly both now and in later life.

The logo has been purposefully designed as a non-symmetrical butterfly to reflect diversity and the inclusion of all forms of non-conventionality in our school. It is also a symbol of bold creativity linked with curriculum design, and of our love of and care for the natural world. The shapes can be interpreted in many ways, including the image of an adult and child and ripples. The four colours within the butterfly reflect our four strands which are named after Dorset butterfly species (Grayling, Skipper, Meadow and Chalkhill).

Our butterfly was introduced at a significant time for our school, a time of transformation and new beginnings.