Curriculum Statement

‘By educating children and expanding each person’s capacity for love, we develop the whole person, nurturing body, mind and spirit.  That is the distinctive Catholic attitude to education.’

Right Reverend Malcolm McMahon OP

The Curriculum is all the planned activities that the school organises in order to promote learning, personal growth and development.  It includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but also the range of additional opportunities that the school organises in order to enrich the experiences of our children.

At St Mary’s we aim to excite our children about learning and to give them an appreciation that learning is a life-long process that can make a difference to their lives as children and in the future. We endeavour to provide a broad, balanced, rich and vivid curriculum which promotes a love of learning and high standards especially in reading, writing and mathematics.

We seek to equip children with the necessary knowledge and understanding to prepare them for the future by focusing on the development of thinking skills such as reflection, reasoning, resilience, responsibility and resourcefulness. Our curriculum seeks to be creative and allows children’s God given individual talents and skills to shine. We present our learning to the children through a series of questions and look to enrich their learning with trips to relevant sites in our local area and beyond and through having visitors come in to school.

Central to our curriculum is the Rainbow poem, where we develop our core Catholic values, promoting an understanding that to be successful children need to learn skills such as; cooperation, friendship, integrity, kindness, courage, compassion, perseverance, reconciliation, effort, risk taking problem solving and organisation. We try to ensure that every moment is used and encouraged as a learning opportunity whether it is learning a new aspect of mathematics, learning how to perform in front of others or learning how to resolve a friendship difficulty.

Show our children what they can achieve if they explore, discover and dream

Teach in a supportive, guiding and inspirational way

Motivate and challenge our children to achieve academic success

Appreciate the uniqueness of every child

Realise the potential in every child through opportunities that expand horizons

Young minds will be nurtured and everyone will be included

Successful, caring, confident, curious and resilient children will grow and flourish

We want our school to be a community where the spiritual, cultural and personal worlds within which our children live are harmonised to form the roots from which to grow our values, motivation, aspirations and the moral imperatives that inform our choices and actions.

Therefore, we have designed a curriculum where, based on Gospel values, children develop deep content knowledge and skills, as well as critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills in the context of an authentic, meaningful learning journey.  There are 3 main drivers for our curriculum:

Emotional Intelligence

We strive to teach children how to recognise and manage their emotions in response to a wide range of scenarios and possible stress factors. We are committed to raising awareness of the importance of mental health and how to maintain good mental wellbeing.

Dreams

We aim for children to have high expectations of themselves and to ‘dream, believe and achieve their God given talents’.  We aim for children to be socially mobile and have the skills and knowledge to be whatever they would like to be. This also requires the need to widen horizons and experiences so that children have a full understanding of what they could do.

Rights of the Child

As a Rights Respecting School (Silver Award) we instil the values associated with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. This is embedded into our school ethos and golden rules. Reference to, and teaching on, the Rights is made throughout all teaching as appropriate including assemblies, break times, and by lunchtime supervisors at dinner times.

✓ Provide all pupils with equal access to a rich, broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum matched well to their ages, abilities, interests, aptitudes and special needs.

✓ Ensure that our children’s physical, mental and emotional needs are an integral part of our curriculum development and design.

✓ Increase pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding as they grow and develop and increase their connections with the world around them.

✓ Carefully plan and structure the curriculum to ensure that learning is continuous and that pupils make good progress with the development of their learning.

✓ Engage the children’s interest and to encourage and motivate them to want to learn.

✓ Be exciting and offer pupils’ lots of first-hand experience to reinforce their learning and to underpin their growing knowledge, skills and understanding of the world.

✓ Open their eyes to awe and wonder and cause them to marvel at the incredible and fantastic world in which they live.

✓ Ensure expectations of children remain high at all times. Cognitive science tells us that humans find thinking difficult. This does not mean that we lower our expectations of what children can achieve. Rather, we put into place measures which will reduce extraneous cognitive load so that children can focus their thinking and not be distracted by redundant information.

Religious Education is the core subject and will provide the foundation for all aspects of learning throughout the curriculum.

We have adopted an approach to provide a coherent, structured curriculum that leads to sustained knowledge and a deep understanding.

High priority is given to foundation subjects and curriculum coverage ensuring that our children have a breadth of knowledge to inspire them and fully prepare them for life beyond the classroom.

Short-term and medium planning is brief. It sets out clear learning objectives, a strategy for differentiating the work and it shows how resources are deployed efficiently and effectively. Learning sequences are clear, highlight skills progression and contain milestones to ensure children are at the expected standard.

Members of staff are given responsibility for leading, managing, monitoring, evaluating and reviewing their curriculum areas.

Teachers and HLTAs are given excellent opportunities to use their subject expertise to enhance the curriculum.

Opportunities include the use of immersive days and small group specialist teaching (in bespoke curriculum rooms) to develop connections in their learning and aid long-term retention.

Opportunities are taken to enliven the curriculum using educational visits, visitors, artists, crafts people, actors and musicians. Also, we use the school grounds, the locality and the wider environment.

An extensive range of high-quality resources including ICT are used effectively to underpin the curriculum. Online safety is taught both discretely and throughout lessons wherever applicable.

Homework will be set where appropriate to link the curriculum with learning at home.

The rich and inspirational curriculum we provide enables our children develop and embrace their God given gifts, talents and skills. They use their excellent grasp of English and maths to access the skills and knowledge required to achieve high standards in all subjects. Our carefully planned curriculum enables them to retain information and apply it in a variety of situations.  All children become resilient and independent learners.

Our curriculum is underpinned by effective systems to check progress to ensure continuity and challenge. Leaders’ commitment and passion for their subject is infectious and has a tangible effect on the quality of teaching.

Children’s work and achievement throughout the curriculum is celebrated and displayed to enable it to make a significant impact on the visual appearance of the school and to contribute positively to our wonderful ethos.

At St Mary’s we aim to develop the whole child through the curriculum.  The child’s personal development is central to everything we do: