Vision

Brave, Unique, Caring and Kind
All learning together

At Damers First School we strive to nurture an inclusive community of respectful, collaborative learners who are encouraged to constantly achieve their very best. We empower all learners to be brave in their learning, celebrate their uniqueness in our world, be caring and kind enough to make truly valuable contributions both locally and globally and to enjoy and benefit from a lifelong love of learning.

Aims

Values

All of our aims are underpinned by our core values. Our values are very important to us and direct our work every day. They enable us to ensure that we continuously do our best for every child but also for all within and beyond our school community.  We reviewed our values and decided on six that meant the most to all of us and we now focus on these over six half terms.  The meaning of these values is approached from four distinct perspectives and our visual representation of these ‘ripples’ when we display a focus value, reminds us of the importance of looking at values through different lenses;

• Intrapersonal (what this value means to me personally)
• Interpersonal (how this value can be seen in my relationships with friends, family and familiar adults)
• Societal (how this value can be seen and shared within our communities)
• Global (what this value means and looks like in the wider world – global citizenship)

Throughout the school year values are introduced in assemblies and alongside our Jigsaw work but will also be reinforced practically through our everyday provision.  They will also be referred to in staff correspondence, newsletters, parent emails and via posters around the school to promote a whole community dialogue.

Our Values

The Importance of the Damers Logo

Following a consultation with representatives from our whole school community in the spring term 2016 it was agreed that the school logo at that point in time didn’t strongly reflect the ethos, aims and values of our school and would need to be updated before our move. Our new school logo was introduced in September 2016.

So why the butterfly?

Although it was widely agreed that children should be at the heart of the design, it was agreed that this would need to be a symbolic representation in order to avoid stereotypes or a non-inclusive image. The butterfly is an image that was reflected in a number of children’s drawings. We feel that it reflects our ultimate vision, aims and values both as parents and educators and our aspiration to give our children the wings to fly both now and in later life.

The logo has been purposefully designed as a non-symmetrical butterfly to reflect diversity and the inclusion of all forms of non-conventionality in our school. It is also a symbol of bold creativity linked with curriculum design, and of our love of and care for the natural world. The shapes can be interpreted in many ways, including the image of an adult and child and ripples. The four colours within the butterfly reflect our four strands which are named after Dorset butterfly species (Grayling, Skipper, Meadow and Chalkhill).

   

Our butterfly was introduced at a significant time for our school, a time of transformation and new beginnings.