At HEARTS Academy Trust, we place significant importance on academic progress and attainment and ensuring all children receive a world-class education. However, we know that full primary schooling should include a variety of life-enhancing and memorable experiences – ones that our children will know and remember for years to come. It is our aim to ensure that all of our pupils receive an education that is not only inspiring and memorable, but one that equips them for their future.

To do so, our curriculum is supplemented with the HEARTS Promise: a programme of activities and initiatives in which every child participates that broadens horizons, builds key skills and inspires learners. Our HEARTS Promise aims to personally develop pupils, build character and promote positive mental health and wellbeing. Often the experiences undertaken will be linked to our curriculum but they are also life events which are rich, fulfilling and provide our children with cultural capital. We aim to overcome our pupils’ barriers to learning, and the HEARTS Promise is a staple of our approach across all of our schools, providing opportunities for children that they would otherwise not receive.

Our HEARTS Promise is designed for all key stages, with activities varied across the provision. It is driven not only by what we know our pupils need but also by challenges and endeavours that we know will inspire and peak pupils’ interests. It is centred, as is our entire curriculum, around our core HEARTS values. The ‘promises’ that all pupils will accomplish and achieve are detailed below, ranging from attempts to break world records to performing on stage, to educational visits abroad.

We deliver our HEARTS Promise so that every child’s time at school with us is exceptional, giving all pupils wonderful, bespoke memories that they will cherish for a lifetime. Each child will also be able to collect badges as they work towards achieving each of the components that make up the HEARTS Promise, and at the time of leaving our schools, a symbolic, photographic record will be presented to each pupil, poignantly showcasing all of the amazing feats and adventures that your child has had in our time with us.

‘The ‘HEARTS Promise’ ensures that pupils have bespoke memories from their time at the school, including staying away from home for a night or trying to break a world, national or trust record. These experiences support pupils’ personal development and increase their self-esteem and resilience.’ Ofsted, September 2023 The Wickford Church of England School.

HEARTS Promise