At Dunbury, we want all of our community to flourish, enabling our whole community to thrive in body, mind and spirit.  We aim to achieve this through the care and curriculum that we offer, which is built on the foundations of our school vision and values. We see our curriculum like a tree with our roots and branches (Vision and Values) being at the heart of all we do.  

To read more about our vision and values, please use the link below.

The Biblical Foundation to our Vision

We develop the golden thread of flourishing through our biblical foundation:

“for we are all one in Christ”, Galatians 3:28

When Paul wrote his letter to Christians in Galatia in the first few years of the life of the Church, he knew that he was writing to a diverse group of people.  They came from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, they had varied life experiences and worked in all sorts of different spheres.  He knew that these differences had the potential to tear them apart – indeed, that was starting to happen.  Instead, he wanted them to realise that they could all be united, and that in the love of Christ, they could achieve great things if only they would learn and work together.

In our school, we are probably even more diverse than the people Paul was writing to.  In our church school, we welcome people from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences – in fact, we recognise that we are all unique and different – none of us is ‘normal’!  We welcome people of Christian heritage into our church school, but equally we welcome those of all faiths or none.  However, within our Christian values of friendship, trust, courage and respect, we believe that we can all be one, that because of our differences we can be stronger than we would be without them, and that we can reach greater heights by learning with and from one another.

In Psalm 133, David wrote: “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” His point was exactly the same as Paul’s.  It is a wonderful and beautiful thing when a community works together in harmony.  Through our values, our pupils, staff, governors and parents, work constantly to make this a reality in the community of Dunbury CE Academy.

The Biblical Foundation to our Values

When we speak of TRUST, we think of how we can build that in our community, recognising that we do not have all the answers ourselves.  Proverbs 3:5 reminds us to ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding’.

FRIENDSHIP reminds us that we are never alone and this underpins everything that it means to live and learn together.  Again, Paul teaches us to: ‘Encourage one another and build each other up’ 1 Thessalonians 5:11.

If we are going to be strong and to fly high together, that is going to take COURAGE.  Moses taught Joshua to ‘be strong and courageous’ (Deuteronomy 31:6).  He was going to take a group of people forward on a challenging journey, but with courage he could and would succeed.

RESPECT will hold everything together.  Only by doing ‘to others as you would have them do to you’ (Luke 6:31) will we be able to hold together; will we be able to be one; will we be able to fly high.

Imagine what it would have been like to have been one of the first people to meet in the church after Jesus left the earth.  Acts 1:15 tells us that there were about 120 of them – almost the same number as we have children at Dunbury!  There were people of all backgrounds, skills, talents, abilities, problems and challenges.  Yet they learned that they could be ‘one’, that they could find ‘strength in difference’ and that together they could ‘fly high’.  Look what they achieved – around 2,000 years later we still enjoy something of what they left for us.  We want to create a similar legacy for the children and families of Dunbury, for generations to come.