In the first of a regular monthly series celebrating Herefordshire's schools, Credenhill CE Primary reveals how it combines high academic standards with Christian values

St Mary’s CE Primary School at Credenhill, Herefordshire, is recognised for its family feel and strong pastoral care, where every child is recognised as an individual and treated as such.

Our high academic standards combined with our strong Christian values ensure a happy and caring environment in which our children can flourish.

We provide wraparound care in the form of our breakfast club and our after-school club, Active 8.

Our school offers the children lots of opportunities to work and play outside.

We have our own onsite forest school area and this year we have been working hard to develop our wellbeing garden.

The children love to play in our little Hobbit huts and perform on their own outside stage.

We’d like to thank our wonderful PTFA and the Co-op Community Fund for raising the money to make this area so fantastic.

At St Mary’s we value all the amazing talents our children have. So as well as working hard on their English and Maths our children enjoy lots of other curriculum activities.

They love to draw and paint (with one of our pupils making the finals of the design a flag for Herefordshire competition) and we enjoy a fantastic outside music company that comes in weekly and teaches years 3 and 4 to play a variety of instruments. Years 5 and 6 even have their own class orchestra!

We also love sports, and each week we have a variety of professional coaches that teach dance, team games and dodgeball to the children – they then hold after-school clubs which are always very popular.

The teachers at St Mary’s believe that the best way to learn is to get out and experience new things.

Year 5 and 6 are off on an exciting London residential trip next year and we take year 4 to an outdoor activity centre where they whiz down zip lines and test their bravery and team work.

Every other class tries to organise a workshop or a trip at least once a term.

This is what our children think of their school:

“The teachers are good. Everyone is caring and I have lots of friends.”

“I have been here three years and I am glad I moved here.”

“I enjoy English and learning about different people and what they do. I also like music, especially playing the keyboards.”

“Mrs Davies, our headteacher, is really caring. If you are upset she makes it better.”

“It’s a fresh start to each day. I’ve never had problems but if I did I would speak to a teacher, they are really caring.”

“I like art. We are looking at fruit and vegetables and drawing pictures of them. We went on a trip to a farm and we picked the vegetables and made minestrone soup. It was yum!”

Why not come and see us in action. Our open day is on Monday, October 14, at 10.30am and 1.30pm we’d love to see you!

FACT FILE

St Mary’s CE Primary School

Station Road, Credenhill, Hereford, HR4 7DW

01432 760408

www.credenhill.hereford.sch.uk

Head Teacher: Mrs B Davies

Number on roll: 164

Ofsted rating: Good