SIAMS

Our Church School Status

Thorncombe St Mary’s is a Church of England, Voluntary Controlled School. We are in the Parish of Thorncombe and part of the Chard team.

Our school is the only school in Dorset to belong to the Bath & Wells Diocese rather than the Salisbury Diocese. Salisbury send us all their training opportunities for ease of access for staff and this gives us the potential opportunity to liaise with local Dorset schools outside of our Diocese.

We belong to a group of other Church Schools, through our local Pyramid of schools, to enable heads & their church leaders to meet regularly. This will be a cross-border group involving Somerset, Devon and Dorset schools and is aimed at sharing good practice and tackling shared issues we face.  Through this group we are creating opportunities for Staff and Pupils to meet in faith related activities.

Our Diocesan centre is based in Wells & is always available for   resources and courses.  David Williams is our link advisor to the Diocese and we periodically ask him to lead staff meetings in school.  We also work closely with Salisbury diocese who have also led school based training sessions.

Jennie Evans is our local part-time Reverend based in Thorncombe.

Jennie works closely with the school and church members delivering ‘Open the Book’ based worship every Monday. Children are encouraged to take part as actors or readers in these collective  worship sessions which they greatly enjoy. Each week is based on a Bible story. She also leads a prayer group twice a month for the senior leaders in school.

Jennie also leads worship for the school at Christmas, Harvest and Easter time. These services are held in the church rather than the school and parents are invited to come along.

The school has good working relations with the church and is always looking to strengthen and develop ways in which we work together for the benefit of the pupils and community.

Please click the link below for our latest SIAMS report from the Diocese.

St Marys Thorncombe SIAMS Report – Dec 2014