Our Values and Vision
Mission Statement for Prior Park Schools
The Prior Park Schools mission, underpinned by shared values, is to steward a thriving family of communities with love for the young people they serve at their heart. These vibrant communities cultivate creativity, foster integrity, and transform lives.
Our Values
Our Mission Statement speaks to the differences that a Prior Park education makes to the young people we serve. Every child is searching for a sense of who they are and the sort of adult they want to become. Schools play a role on this journey. Great schools, like Prior Park, help our students to explore who they are and find the adult they wish to be.
Curiosity
Curiosity speaks a lot about who we are as schools and the journey that we are on. That works in a number of different ways. From the international element of all our schools, which we encourage all of our pupils to engage with, through to the diversity agenda that is shaping so much of society today – being curious is a virtue and a value. The days of unquestioningly doing what you are told are over. Dogma is not a 21st Century virtue. Questioning definitely is.
We want to encourage our students to be eager, to marvel at creation, to wonder about their place in the world, and in our community. We provide a safe environment to encourage curiosity in every respect, from Reception classes spending days at a time outside, exploring the sights of the natural world through to our Sixth Form General Studies programme where students have their eyes lifted to the horizon.
Generosity
Kindness is a word long associated with Prior Park. It is a wonderful virtue and one that sits comfortably with our family of schools. However, ultimately it comes from a place of generosity. The same can be said of service, also something long associated with Prior. Service is a clear consequence of the value of generosity. If you are generous with your feelings, then you are kind. To be generous is to be accepting of difference in all its forms.
To be generous is to look to serve others. In short, so much of our Mission Statement above ‘communities… love… serve… transform’, can be seen to come from a place of generosity. Even ‘stewardship’, which takes time, attention, and care from our volunteer Trustees, comes from a position of generosity. It is a virtue that we can articulate clearly, and that runs through all we do.
Courage
To act with integrity is to act in accordance with your values, in a consistent manner. To behave in this fashion comes from a place of courage. It takes courage to challenge others and to be accepting of challenge. It takes courage to have faith in a world where many do not. Equally it takes courage to not have faith, but to still live a moral, civilised, life without the bedrock of gospel values that have underpinned civilisation for 1500 years.
It takes courage to take responsibility for your own learning, and the learning of others. It takes courage to act honestly when faced with consequences which may be damaging. Courage is a word that has strength, and it is a word that we should be proud to put front and centre, and which grounds our decisions as a community.
