Our Vision

To inspire children to be confident, courageous and compassionate within a community that enables them to flourish academically, socially and spiritually.

Our Shared Values

Matthew 22:36-39 (New International Version)

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

The disciples ‘loved learning’ from Jesus, their teacher. He taught them that the most important commandments were to ‘love one another’ and to ‘love God’.

What’s behind our motto and vision?

Loving learning enables children to flourish academically.

LDSM is a school serving a diverse community- professionals, tradespeople, those who rely on state help and member of the travelling community come together here. We want every child to see and reach their potential, considering not just what we want them to be and achieve when they are 11, but what they may be able to go on and achieve after secondary schooling as a result of the start we offer them.

Loving one another enables children to flourish socially.

We want our children to be confident, friendly young people who are able to approach and engage with any member of society. We value friendships that weave within and across year groups; as part of the Ember Learning Trust we also value our place within Long Ditton. We encourage children to look beyond their local area and appreciate their place in the world, knowing also that any one of them is capable of creating change within that world.

Loving God enables children to flourish spiritually.

LDSM serves a community who primarily choose it as a local school. We aim to embody the transforming good news of the Gospel and believe that what is said and lived and demonstrated is an invitation to see if it makes a difference to the way our children view things or live their lives – an opportunity to encourage the exploration of what faith is and what it is about. We hope that encountering God within the context of the Christian faith extends tolerance and maybe deepens a sense of spirituality. We demonstrate the Christian understanding of inclusiveness that we are all made in the image of God and, through living it out, help each child develop a sense of worth.

Why the 3 Cs?

Confident: We aim to develop confident, independent learners. We have high expectations of learning and behaviour in a school where children are challenged, encouraged, and not afraid of making mistakes. Children should leave LDSM with a sense of security out of which they can be both humble and courageous young people.

Our confidence within our Christian heritage and context gives us the security to grow in humility as we are not derailed by failure, and we do not need to put others down in order to feel bigger ourselves.

Courageous: We want LDSM to be a place of hope, believing in the possibility of positive outcomes from bad experiences. The world we are preparing our children for will not always be enjoyable so qualities and values are needed to cope with this. We use the ethos of a growth mindset, teaching and learning that to fail is not a disaster, but a new opportunity for learning.

We believe that Jesus taught us how to be courageous, to do the right thing rather than the easy thing. We aim to encourage and support others around us, talking about our feelings when we feel discouraged and having the courage to build people up who need our support.

Compassionate: We aim to be a school where each child is happy and supported, experiencing grace and compassion for those around them.

We believe that God is gracious: he shows us undeserved favour and we do not have to earn his love. Jesus is our model of compassion: he comes alongside us in struggle. We aim to care for others in the way that God cares for us.

Our Community

We want our school to be a community where we trust and serve each other (reflecting the vision statement of St Mary’s Church ‘Following Christ, serving you’) and where we engage with our bigger community locally and globally, valuing diversity and called to serve others, include the vulnerable and marginalised. We want our children to be aware of their responsibilities as citizens in their wider world, so that they leave school with a vision to be agents of peace and justice.