| Our Curriculum | Curriculum Statement

Curriculum Statement

St Godric’s RC Primary School Curriculum

Basic Principles

Our mission statement ‘We love respect and value each other’, is at the heart of everything that we do in our school. We firmly believe in developing the whole child and celebrating with them their talents and achievements.

We believe that each child is a unique gift from God and it is our aim that every child knows about God’s love for us and sees Christ in each other. We strive to ensure that every pupil grows spiritually and develops the values needed to be an asset to their community. In addition, we believe that opportunities should be built in so that each child is celebrated for the special gifts and talents that they possess.

Additionally, we aim to ensure that every child will experience a wide breadth of study and our curriculum is developed with a focus on the progression of skills, knowledge and experience for future learning, employment and wellbeing.

Curriculum Intent

1. Curriculum drivers shape our curriculum breadth. They are derived from an exploration of the backgrounds of our students, our beliefs about high quality education and our values. They are used to ensure we give our students appropriate and ambitious curriculum opportunities.

We have specifically identified the following list:

  • Initiative – promoting resilience
  • Possibilities – careers, opportunities
  • Environment – how to care for the world in which we live
  • Diversity – celebration of cultures
  • Spirituality – RE permeating the whole life of the school
  • Culture and Arts – art, music, heritage, visits and visitors
  • Mindfulness – meditation and mental health
  • Community – what it means to be a part of the class, home family, school, parish, local area and a British citizen.
  • Sport – to develop a passion for a sport which they enjoy and can use to help them keep fit.

2. Cultural capital gives our pupils the background knowledge required to be thoughtful and informed members of our community who understand and believe in British values.

3. Our curriculum focuses on ‘threshold concepts’ which are indicators of progress within the programmes of study. These capture the essence of the most important aspects of a subject e.g. For history topics they would include Chronology/ Historical Communication/ Investigating and Interpreting Evidence and Connections in World History. Students will return to these concepts over and over with increasing depth across the key stages and gradually build up their understanding of them.

4. The curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and employment.

5. The curriculum has been adapted, designed or developed to be ambitious and meet the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND, developing their knowledge, skills and abilities to apply what they can do and what they know with increasing fluency and independence.

6. Pupils in all year groups study the full curriculum. Staff aim to ensure that all children’s skills and talents are incorporated into the provision, enabling every child to have the chance to shine and achieve highly. Where necessary this is supported through external specialists.

Curriculum Implementation

1. All staff work together and receive appropriate professional development to ensure that they have excellent subject knowledge.

2. Lessons are planned so that subject matter is clearly presented; this facilitates relevant and appropriate discussion about the subject matter being taught. Teachers continually check pupils understanding, identifying misconceptions quickly and provide clear and direct feedback. They respond and adapt their teaching to meet the needs of their pupils.

3. Teachers plan lessons to enable pupils to remember long term the content being taught and to enable them to apply new knowledge into larger ideas.

4. The classroom environment focuses on pupils. All teaching resources are selected to inspire and meet the learning needs of all children.

5. The work planned is appropriately challenging for all pupils and matches the aims of the curriculum in being sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge.

6.  Reading is always a top priority as it enables all pupils to access the full curriculum on offer. Class teachers monitor the reading curriculum to ensure development of fluency, enjoyment and confidence in reading. Ongoing assessment ensures gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils. Reading books are matched closely to the phonics knowledge pupils are taught when they are learning to read.

7. Teaching staff in Early Years and Key Stage One devote time and effort to ensure that their pupils gain phonics knowledge and language comprehension necessary to read, and the skills to communicate, giving them the foundations for future learning.

8. Ongoing assessment is well used by teachers and leaders to check understanding, inform teaching and enable children to use knowledge fluently.

Curriculum Impact

1.  As a result of high quality teaching, pupils develop detailed knowledge and skills across the curriculum.

2. The progressive curriculum provided ensures that pupils are ready for the next stage in their education. They have the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.

3. Pupils consistently produce work that is of a high standard across all curriculum areas.

 

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