Opened September 2013
as a result of an amalgamation
with St Bernadette’s PS and St Aidan’s PS.
Principal: Mr Raymond Hunter
Vice Principal: Miss Marie McIntyre
Web: http://www.johnpaul2.co.uk/
Welcome to John Paul II Primary School. As a member of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, we are committed to a set of five key principles (as set out below) in our school charter that determine how we approach the challenge of educating children in the twenty-first century:
Nurturing Faith, Christian Spirituality and Gospel-based Values
Promoting Partnership in the School Community
Excelling in Teaching and Learning
Creating a Caring School Community
Providing and Inspiring Transformational Leadership
The Charter seeks to inspire and to challenge the whole school community to work with a shared vision and in a true spirit of Christian partnership. Our objective is to enhance the educational development of all children whilst supporting the professional and personal growth of all who work in our schools. We encourage all to take risks, to think differently and to constantly question how we can add more value to the life chances of children during these formative years. We will make mistakes on this journey yet is in the learning from mistakes that we grow and develop to cope with success and failure; that’s the real world!
Our school is a place of hope, happiness, courage and honest struggle where everyone is valued and respected and where the mission of the Edmund Rice Schools Trust is realised. Our first priority is to ensure the safety of children and in this area our pastoral care and child protection arrangements are deemed as ‘outstanding’ (ETI: March 2015).
Our second priority is to ensure that all children are happy; unhappy people cannot learn! When we have secured these two foundation stones, we will then address priority three: a relentless pursuit of school improvement that will ensure children are best placed to face further educational challenges from primary through to post-primary and beyond (teaching deemed as ‘Very Good’. ETI: March 2015).
We will encourage independence from early on; we will insist that children take responsibility for all actions and we will support and develop the key skills that are vital for young people to maximise chances of following dreams and careers – some of which have yet to be invented. Your child may well find employment in Belfast, Ballymena or Bangor. However, in order to capitalise on opportunities further afield, it may be just as likely that children who have developed a love for life-long learning will seek and secure opportunities that may arise in Boston, Berlin or Barcelona. We will ensure that a positive disposition towards learning is developed that will carry your child: ‘to infinity and beyond’.
In creating an ethos and a vision, we put people before process. We put menus before mandates and we collaborate rather than control: this is our understanding of our role as educators in John Paul II Primary School.
I am confident that you will feel a sense of breadth, balance and a range of exciting and innovative teaching and learning – coupled to a strong sense of pastoral care.
Raymond Hunter (Principal)
