Wisdom

Our Christian value of WISDOM is an intrinsic part of all aspects of school life for staff and children alike.  At Selwood we seek to provide children with high quality education rooted in Christianity that will support them throughout their lives enabling them to ‘Live Life in all its fullness’ John 10:10

Each core Christian value is represented to the children in a range of ways e.g. a dictionary definition, the reason why we have chosen that value, which bible story it links to, children’s voice showing what that value means to them and through art work.

Wisdom is ‘Knowledge’, and the capacity to make due use of it, using characteristics of Creativity, Curiosity, Judgement, Love of Learning and Prospective.  A person gains wisdom through experience and study and by following God’s counsel.

Our behaviour system of rewarding positive behaviour with achievement points is linked to the 4 core Christian values.  Reasons why pupils can earn achievement points are outlined in the table below.  

 

Wisdom 

Community 

Joy 

Hope

Problem solving

Taking part with a positive attitude

Enthusiasm

Ambition

Questioning 

Politeness 

Resilience

Optimism 

Seeking help

Empathy

Self-Belief 

Positivity 

Listening 

Respect for others

Creativity

Risk Taking

Leadership

Supporting others

Pride in achievement/work

Learning from failure and completing tasks.

Self Control

Praising others

Love of learning

Independent work

 


We use the bible story ‘The Wise Man who built his house upon the Rock’ (Matthew 7: 24 – 46) to model how we must think carefully before we act, and how putting our words and thoughts into practise is a way of ‘letting our light shine’.  The story also demonstrates how wisdom is not just used in academic terms but you can make wise decisions, and how putting effort into our decisions and choices produces a higher quality result. Jesus told a parable about two men who each decided to build a house. The two men went out looking for the perfect place to build the house.

 

The first man was very wise. He thought carefully about the kind of house he wanted to build. He wanted a house that was strong. If a strong wind or heavy rains came he did not want his house to break up or wash away. This wise man knew that the most important part of a house is its foundation. The foundation is the first thing that is built and is the bottom of the house. The foundation needs to be sturdy and strong to make the house sturdy and strong.

The wise man looked everywhere and then he found the perfect place. He found a huge flat rock. The rock could be the foundation for the house. The wise man dug around and chipped the rock until it was the perfect size for his house. Then he built his house upon the rock.  After he was finished he lived in the house. Many times storms came to his house. The winds blew and the rains came but the wise man sat comfortably in his house. He did not worry about the storms because he had built his house on a rock.

In Jesus’ parable he told of the other man that built a house. This man was foolish. He did not think carefully about the kind of house he should build. He just found a nice flat place and started building. He built his house on sand. The foundation kept slipping and sliding in the sand but the foolish man did not care. He just wanted to build a house.  When the foolish man finished his house he moved in. Guess what happened when the first storm came? The winds blew and the rains came down and the foolish man’s house fell apart. It fell apart because it did not have a strong foundation.

 

Here is a prayer written by our pupils on our core Christian value; Wisdom.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for this day.

Let us have the wisdom to make it one of the best

Let us respect our friends and family

Please give us the wisdom to do the right thing and help us let our light shine always

Give us the wisdom to be happy

Amen