Welcome to St Anne's

St Anne’s Catholic Primary School Nantwich is a magical mix of exciting, forward thinking children, staff and families surrounded by the rich historical tapestry that is Nantwich. St Anne's has served the community since the end of the last century. The original school was built in 1892. This was replaced in 1968 by the present building on Wellington Road, although this building has been added to over the years, as our community has expanded. The latest addition is our new school library and medical room.

On behalf of the St Anne’s community, I would like to warmly welcome you to our happy, friendly school.  We are very proud of all that we achieve as a Good school with Outstanding features  (OFSTED 2020).   

As you walk in the door of St Anne's you will be welcomed by our office staff, Mrs Ashbrooke or Mrs Henry. Safeguarding is of utmost importance, so please sign in and take a visitor badge, that way we know who our visitors are.

Our entrance reflects the Catholic nature of our school and we invite you to look at our mosaic's, a symbol of the peace that we strive to achieve in our school, through ensuring that Jesus is at the heart of all that we do.

On our RE focus display, which changes with the seasons, you will notice a prayer basket.  Please feel free to add a prayer. We will pray for your intention during our assemblies; at our Prayer Group meeting and at our Mini Vinnie meetings.

You will also notice a suggestions box.  You are welcome to comment on what you like about St Anne's' give constructive criticism or add suggestions for ways to make St Annes an even better place.

We have comfy seating if you need to wait a while and even a welcome cup of tea or coffee.

CLICK HERE for a virtual tour of our wonderful school. 

The Hall

The Hall is where it all happens! The hub of the school. This is a great place where the school community can enjoy being together. It is used for whole school and Key Stage assemblies, where our projector and overhead projector enable the staff or children to provide visual aids to support their assemblies.

Parts of the PE curriculum are taught in the hall, where our range of gymnastic equipment enables the staff to provide quality gymnastic lessons, that encourage and inspire the reticent and stretch the more able.

We have some interesting art work adorning the walls and this is added to regularly. 

The hall is used for lunches, when the children enjoy a delicious meal cooked by Mrs Burd and her team. The meat is sourced from a local butcher and is never frozen. Vegetables are fresh; milk is fresh not powdered and free range eggs are used. The children can choose from two options and then help themselves to a choice from the salad bar. Juice, milk and water are offered. Our Mid-Day ladies, ensure that our children enjoy a good lunch and then have great fun letting off steam outside. Children are more than welcome to bring a healthy packed lunch.

At other times the hall is filled with music as we hold our very popular and talented choir practise, or put on our performances.  Often our hall is filled with parents, families and friends who have come to watch one of our many, high quality class performances or assemblies.

Sometimes the hall is filled with suspense as our school community eagerly await an announcement of who has won the House competition this week or who has won one of our competitions such as the Public speaking competition and the talent show.

Reception and Year 1

This area consists of  two classrooms and a partially covered outdoor area, both of which are constantly changing as our  Teachers, Mrs Mosley and Mrs Kelly; assisted by Mrs Mooney, and Mrs Fairhurst, adapt it to meet the evolving learning needs of our youngest children. As part of the Forest School programme the Reception and Year 1 children spend half a day a week in our woodland area. This may involve fire making, wood craftsmanship, learning about the natural world and developing the children's independence and collaborative skills.

The child centred Early Years Foundation Stage means that the children learn through both structured and non- structured play learning opportunities, covering the seven areas of learning and development. There are three prime areas:

• Communication and language
• Physical development
• personal and social development

There are also 4 specific areas, in which the prime areas are strengthened and applied.

• literacy
• mathematics
• understanding the world
• expressive arts and design

To ensure a smooth transition into Year 1, the Year 1 children continue to follow the above programme until they are ready to move on to the national curriculum, often participating in both types of curriculum during the Autumn term.

There are two classrooms that can be used by either age phase.  The first classroom providing a more active, slightly noisier, learning environment, whereas the second classroom provides a quiet area for more formal learning.

Year 2

From the Reception Area walk straight down along the corridor past Year 6 and you will come to Year 2 classroom. Year 2 are taught by our Deputy Head Mrs Ferguson. Like all the classes, Year 2 have an Interactive Whiteboard, 2 class computers and have access to a class set of laptops.

Although by Year 2 our children are beginning to learn in a more mature and abstract way, the staff still recognise the need for practical activities and the opportunity for exploration, in order for these young children to fully internalise their learning. The RE focus table helps the children to be reflective and develops their skills in forming their own prayers.

Year 3

From the Reception area, the first classroom on th left is our Year 3classroom, where Mrs James is the Class Teacher.  The classroom is quite large and has access to the prayer garden. 

Year 3 enjoy a smooth transition from Key Stage One to Key Stage Two through a creative, rich curriculum. They enjoy learning about the Romans, making animals with moving mouths and exploring different religions.

We have many displays to celebrate and support children's learning and the RE focus area constantly evolves, supporting the children on their faith journey.  

Year 4

Through the hall past, the year 4 classroom is the first classroom on the left along the corridor. The teacher is Miss Ratcliffe. 

The Year 4 classroom has imaginative displays to support the children's learning.  A door leads out from the classroom, straight into the playground.

Year 5

Continuing along the corridor you will come to Year 5. The teacher in Year 5 is Miss McGonigle, our Literacy subject lead.

The Year 5 classroom is at the front of the school looking out over the school car park and with a lovely view of the horse-chestnut tree which is lovely to see changing through the seasons. They have a door that leads straight outside to a path that leads to the Playground. They enjoy learning using an interactive whiteboard, iPads, computers, books and lots of concrete apparatus in Maths. There are individual lockers in the classroom to keep the children’s belongings safe and organised and trays down one whole side of the classroom to store all the shared resources, which the children can access whenever they need them.

Year 6

Mrs Catchpole is the Year 6 Teacher. She works hard to ensure that the Year 6 curriculum is motivating and stretches the children to ensure that they reach their full potential before they go on to secondary school. The children enjoy greater responsibility, which also helps with the transition from Key Stage Two to Key Stage Three.

Again the class enjoy huge windows and direct access to the playground.

The Library

This is the newest change to our school. Our books use to be kept along the corridors, but now that we have a library  Children are able to borrow a range of books to encourage the development of a love of reading.

"Reading has high importance at St Anne’s . Leaders get children learning about phonics in Reception almost as soon as they start school . Staff have a good knowledge of the subject . They teach phonics in a well structured way. By the end of Year 1, almost all pupils meet the expected standard."  OFSTED 2020

The library also provides a quiet area for children to work with Teaching Assistants.

Support room

We are very fortunate to have a dedicated area for Teaching Assistants to run support programmes. The room is also used by some of our Peripatetic music teachers, art therapist and school nurse. 

The Playground

This consists of six zones: the fenced area for playing ball games, an activity area with wobbly bridges, climbing apparatus and balance beams; a woodland area, with resident badgers and a variety of birds, including buzzards; a sitting area, where children can picnic, play games, share books or just chat; the field, which is used a lot during the summer for games, chase or just sitting down relaxing; and the free play area, which has floor markings to help the children to create their own games or play traditional games such as hop scotch.

Some Year 5 and Year 6 children are Play Leaders. They are trained so that they can play games with the younger children to help keep them from becoming bored and they also look after small play equipment such as skipping ropes, swing balls, stilts and other ball games. You can recognise them by their high visibility jackets and their yellow Helping Hands badge.

Our Mid-Day assistants look after the children both in the hall and in the playground, ensuring that the children continue to live by the same Christian values that are expected in the classroom. 

Forest School

St Anne's is working hard to become an established Forest School. Mrs Kelly, Miss Coyle, Ms Alcock and Mrs Ferguson have all received training in delivering Forest School lessons. 

Our children love learning in the woodland area, bluebell woods and in the school grounds.

A Forest School is an innovative educational approach to outdoor play and learning.

The philosophy of Forest Schools is to encourage and inspire individuals, of any age, through positive outdoor experiences. This is achieved by providing engaging, motivating and achieveable tasks in a woodland environment. During a typical forest school session, each participant will be given an opportunity to develop intrinsic motivation, whilst developing emotional and social skills. 

Forest Schools has demonstrated success with children of all ages who visit the same local woodlands on a regular basis and through play, who have the opportunity to learn about the natural environment, how to handle risks and most importantly to use their own initiative to solve problems and co-operate with others. Forest School programmes run throughout the year, for about 36 weeks, going to the woods in all weathers (except for high winds). Children use full sized tools, play, learn boundaries of behaviour both physical and social, establish and grow in confidence, self-esteem and become self motivated.

Forest Schools will aim to develop:

• Self Awareness
• Self Regulation
• Intrinsic motivation
• Empathy
• Good social communication skills
• Independence
• A positive mental attitude, self-esteem and confidence

Forest School, through its application of Accelerated Learning Techniques creates a unique learning vehicle that is used to encourage a range of individuals, community groups and larger organisations to utilise their local open space for interactive play, health, recreation and personal development uses.

Reception and Year 1 enjoy weekly Forest School sessions. Our aim is to extend this unique method of learning through to Year 2.