At St. Joseph’s we believe that education is about teaching children the knowledge, skills, and values that they will require to be effective life-long learners.
We strive for our students to not only develop their talents in each of the individual subjects they study, but also to encourage their personal character development to flourish in order that our students may grow into positive, resilient, empathetic and responsible young adults contributing towards the common good, ready for the challenges and success beyond their St Joseph’s journey.
Our school mission embodies and is lived out every day through FLAME.
Faith
Our students and staff have faith in themselves, faith in God, faith in others, and a belief that anything is possible. As a school, we support our students in their journey of faith, providing opportunities for reflection, and challenging stereotypes, to enable us to celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion. Students are kind, humble and serve others living by the character values of being loving, thankful, humble, forgiving, and joyful. The Faith element of FLAME is lived through many examples of life at St. Joseph’s e.g. daily worship, weekly assemblies, youth village, spirituality days, liturgical services. We have an active Faith in Action group and PJP II award.
Learning
Our students and staff are on a lifelong journey of learning and students leave St. Joseph’s with rich and varied knowledge, the ability to ask questions, and the facility to discuss and challenge perceptions, improving society as we go. Our students are ready to learn and take pride in their class work and homework. They are prepared and equipped to deal with the learning challenges of each day. Our teaching and learning CPD is centred around encouraging the key learning values and students exhibit the character values through their learning of being determined, being problem solvers, being creative and reflecting on their learning to strive for excellence. FLAME is built into our quality assurance and celebrations of excellent learning.
Attitude
We celebrate our own achievements and those of our students. We encourage our students’ lights to shine, and share their successes, so that this culture of celebrating achievement becomes our norm. We want every individual at St. Joseph’s to have a positive attitude, so they are able to rise and meet new challenges, to be positive, and to show determination and perseverance.
Our staff model and embed these attitude expectations with excellent examples of teamwork and through the work they do with the students in their care. Through our embedded character values our students show integrity and are inspiring to those around them. As team players they develop positive relationships and resilience in adapting to daily challenges. Student leadership opportunities are continually developing in the school as are rewards and award celebrations. We have developed a unique FLAME badge as part of our rewards system and achievements for the levels are linked directly to FLAME values.
Mutual respect
Our community cares for one another. Our students take part in raising awareness of key issues and become involved in charity work. We have aimed for inclusion and equity within our school. Just as St. Joseph provided for those in the family of God, we help our students to become outward facing members of society. Our students are respectful and kind to all members of our school community. They show respect and take care of the school environment. As they develop relationships, we encourage them to be tolerant and empathetic towards others showing kindness and develop trusting bonds within our community. As stewards of the environment, we encourage students to build respectful connections to their local environment and build knowledge of how they can be stewards going out into the wider world. Our themed weeks are an excellent example of this with February being a themed month of friendship with activities designed by students and held throughout school. We have developed our community links over the years with close links to Hebburn Helps and the local SVP society.
Enrichment
St. Joseph’s is about the formation and development of the whole child. All of our students are given a range of enrichment opportunities, allowing them to explore their passions, and to experience new things. These have been enabled by the enthusiasm and encouragement of staff who have embraced their passion and individual FLAME talents to offer so many enrichment opportunities. As a result, these opportunities, of course, go beyond the purely academic. Our students want to enrich and enhance their lives. They embrace their talents and engage in extracurricular and career education activities. They excel in their charitable work and are aspirational and passionate about their character development. They show courage in their choices willing to step outside their comfort zones and celebrate choices and enrichment successes.
What our school community says about FLAME
FLAME is easy to understand as a school motto. It gives us clear goals to aim for and achieve. William Year 8
FLAME has improved eagerness and motivation especially for new groups coming to school. Ben Year 10
FLAME has brought new opportunities for extracurricular activities and leadership. Heidi Year 10
It feels like FLAME belongs here and staff and students are always talking about it. I like the way it has built up the school council and school events. Lewis Year 11, School Council Captain, and STYC Representative.
FLAME has really improved our school as you can feel and see the change. We changed the behaviour code to expectations, and I think this has improved behaviour. Sophie Year 13.
FLAME celebrates positive values and unique character values, links to the Gospel values we seek to live by. Science teacher
I apply a lot of practical activities we do to FLAME. You need to remember to believe in yourself that you can do things, like when we built paper towers and they fell down. They show you that you can get back up. Year 7 student.
Within a matter of minutes of the Open Evening presentation starting we knew this was the right school to send our daughter to, for what will be the most important stage of her young adult life. We simply love the FLAME ethos and what it stands for. We know our child has huge potential which fits hand in hand with St Joseph’s enrichment programme which we thought was superb in supporting each student to flourish as an individual. Parent of incoming Year 6 Student