Welcome To Darwen St James.

 

We are a Church of England primary academy.  Being an academy means that we joined a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT), our trust is called Cidari.  Being a CofE academy, means that our Vision and Mission statements are at the forefront of everything that we do here, they are not just words we live them out every day.

We are a one form entry academy and our intake starts with 2yr olds all the way up to 11 year olds. Our staff team are friendly and welcoming, we have an open door policy so that parents can speak to us as and when needed.

Our children are happy and love coming to school, they settle well and always make good friends.  The children are engaged in their learning and use a Growth Mindset approach to enable them to build resilience and to be able to challenge themselves to take risks.

The curriculum at Darwen St James is taught in discrete lessons, it is broad and balanced enabling the children to learn thoroughly in each subject area.  As much as possible, the children’s interests lead the curriculum and how lessons are taught, especially in EYFS. Our aim is to ensure that all children are ready to access the next stage in their education, but also to spark ambition for a future career and enable them to see a purpose in education.

We have regular trips and visitors to help bring subjects and learning to life for the children.  We also have an annual residential trip for Year 6, which includes canoeing, archery, climbing, zip lines, raft building and much much more. Throughout the year, we have curriculum days in school to promote different subject areas and also to let the children explore these subjects in more detail. Every half term we hold whole school challenge mornings to use skills of perseverance, risk taking and teamwork, during these mornings we encourage the use of Growth Mindset language to get through even the trickiest of challenges.

A huge part of what our school is about is nurture and wellbeing.  We are extremely lucky to have a Pupil Wellbeing coordinator and assistant who tirelessly work with families, children and other agencies to ensure the safeguarding of our school community.  We also put time into the timetable, on top of PSHE, to promote wellbeing, safeguarding, citizenship and entrepreneurship. The children also have access to a Nurture room for 1-1 work and or group work as needed.

We celebrate success in all things, both in and out of school and these are recognised in our weekly celebration assembly. The children are rewarded in a variety of ways for good work, manners, risk taking, perseverance, talents, skills and much much more.  We love to share this special time with parents/carers and friends of school.

DSJ values pupil voice, so we have an Academy council and also a Worship team.  These young people, who were voted in democratically by their peers, are involved in a variety of things across school from what should happen to the church building, to evaluating worship, to suggesting charity events to raise money, to helping in our local community.  

We offer a free breakfast club to all of our children from Reception to Year 6.  Nursery get their own snack time too! Our lunches are an excellent quality, there is always a hot or a cold option to choose from along with the salad and fruit bars and pudding! All dietary requirements can be managed.  Our food is provided to us by Aspdens. An example menu can be found in Parental Information.

Explore the website and if you have any questions or would be interested in coming to visit us please call the school office on 01254 703260.

Miss Laura Peckson

Headteacher