Welcome to St Christophers Academy

St Christophers Academy is a thriving Primary School with approximately 312 students including a Nursery approaching 60 children. The school is situated on the Luton and Dunstable borders, in Bedfordshire, and has all the variety and energy of a fully multi-cultural Primary school. In October 2019 the Academy was inspected and judged as Good by Ofsted. Since then, we have continued to improve and are constantly striving to develop our practice and raise levels of achievement.

The size of the Academy and membership of the Bedfordshire Schools Trust (BEST) mean that opportunities available to staff are incredibly varied and wide-ranging. We have a growing reputation for developing an exciting and innovative culture of research within the Academy.

The Staff teams across the academy are very friendly and welcoming. We are always available to help with any matters and work together to help make the background running of the Academy run as smoothly as possible.

If you would like to visit St Christophers Academy during a normal teaching day, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Safer Recruitment and Selection of School Staff  

The school has adopted robust recruitment and selection procedures that minimise the risk of employing people who might abuse children, or are otherwise unsuitable to work with them. We complete a full range of checks which are carried out to minimise the possibility of children and young people suffering harm from those they consider to be in positions of trust.

We ensure that all appropriate measures are applied in relation to everyone who works in the school, including volunteers and staff employed by contractors. This is an essential part of creating a safe environment for children and young people.   

Safer practise in recruitment means thinking about and including issues to do with child protection and safeguarding children at every stage of the process. This includes obtaining and scrutinising comprehensive information about applicants. For example, obtaining professional references, verifying academic or vocational qualifications, previous employment history, verifying health and physical capacity for the job as well as resolving any discrepancies or anomalies in references.  It also includes ensuring that advertising, job descriptions, person specifications and interview processes includes safeguarding and right to work in England checks.

Everyone who works in the school, including volunteers, will have appropriate Disclosure and Barring (DBS),  teacher status checks and disqualification by association checks. The school will ensure volunteers are appropriately supervised as outlined in statutory guidance on supervising the activities of workers and volunteers with children. See the school's Safer Recruitment, Volunteer and DBS Policies.

NQTs

We welcome NQT's at St Christophers Academy and we offer a very good induction programme and package of support for our Newly qualified teachers. All teachers are given a mentor to help them through their NQT year where they are provided with a bespoke CPD package. Collaborative working is encouraged at the Academy and staff will plan together and support one another.

CPD at St Christophers is tailored to the needs of the children and staff. We also work with other schools to provide training and support. Currently, our staff are participating in lesson study where they plan lessons together and evaluate the learning of different groups of pupils. The Chiltern Teaching School Alliance provides our NQTs with a fantastic training package. All sessions are twilight sessions and teachers are able to meet each other and share good practice. 

St Christophers is a small school with a family atmosphere, children and staff alike are welcoming and to those who join. Very quickly you will find you have become part of the St Christophers family.

Pam Jones, Principal.