Community

We want the children at Dunmow St Mary’s to develop a strong understanding of their roles and responsibilities in relation not only to the school community but to the wider community within which they live and grow up. In line with the government’s aims on improving community cohesion we aim for the children to develop a strong sense of belonging with positive relationships to people they come into contact with in their daily lives. As well as working towards building a common vision this sense of community acknowledges and welcomes the diversity of people’s backgrounds and circumstances.

You can read more about the strong links we have with St Mary’s Church and Cambridge University and in addition the following are some of the ways we endeavour to continually promote a sense of community to our children.

We provide

• Opportunities across the curriculum especially in RE and PSHE to explore differences, challenge prejudices and stereotyping and to help pupils to value differences.
• Assemblies led by members of the local and wider community and curriculum based fieldtrips to broaden pupils understanding of the world around them.
• Opportunities for local people to come in to talk/give demonstrations to the children about their lives or their particular skills or interests.
• Local Community visits for example to the church, library, shops and Museum
• Time for involvement in local initiatives e.g. Dunmow Big Draw and working with local artists.
• Community based projects such as the River bank project where our children worked with church leaders to create a calm, nature walk and improve the condition of the church grounds.
• Sporting and academic competitions against other schools which teach the children the value of endeavour and perseverance.