Attitudes to Learning

At St John’s, we hold our students to the highest standards and expectations so that they can fulfil their potential and become the best version of themselves.  We expect them to excel academically and to embody the values that define our community. We anticipate that every student will engage actively in their education, demonstrating positive attitudes to learning, showing tremendous commitment, and a willingness to challenge themselves.

Being prepared for learning is the key to success and we reinforce our high standards on a daily basis through PREP and throughout our subject lessons.

We actively encourage all students to embrace the academic, enrichment and extra-curricular opportunities that are available to them at St John’s.  Through active participation and positive contributions, students develop valuable life-skills including teamwork, resilience, leadership and community service. 

As members of our learning community, we expect students to be respectful of one another, celebrating diversity and supporting one another to achieve collective and personal goals.

As St John’s, we believe:

• Our students are individual and valued members of our community.
• Positive attitudes to learning lead to personal and collective success.
• Good behaviour provides a safe and secure learning environment for all.
• Mutual respect encourages a positive learning culture where all can excel. 

At St John’s we expect:

• Excellent attendance and punctuality with students at congregation for 8.50am on a daily basis.
• Any absences to be confirmed by parents/carers via telephone call, email or MCAS app. 
• Medical and dental appointments to be arranged outside of school hours, where possible.  
• Years 7-11 students to not leave school site without permission.
• The school environment, facilities and resources to be respected for the good of all. 
• Students’ mobile phones to be switched off and in the bottom of bags once arriving on school site and not switched on until students have left the school site.
• Students not to have chewing gum and fizzy drinks on school site.
• Students to use their own water bottles which they may access during the school day.   

 

At St John’s we expect our students to take responsibility for their own learning, inside and outside of the classroom. Students are expected to complete homework activities and to revise their work on a regular basis, not just in the immediate lead up to a formal assessment. Research has proven that this method, (spaced retrieval), has a more positive effect than cramming or studying for prolonged periods of time.

Following assessments, students will be made aware of areas for improvement in their work. This may take many forms, including “Green Box” activities in exercise books, question level analysis or specific learning tasks to reinforce key words, concepts and processes.

We encourage all students to have excellent attitudes to learning and our descriptors below are shared with students, parents and carers to ensure that our high standards and expectations are reinforced.