Curriculum

Our curriculum is underpinned by the school’s core values. Our school community all agree that our children can ‘blossom and grow’ by embracing the values of:

Hope

Community

Respect

Wisdom

Curriculum Intent

Our dynamic curriculum ensures that all children can succeed now and are ready for Life beyond St. Marys. Through careful planning and attention to the needs of our children as individuals, it ensures it is not only appropriate for all but that all can be challenged; all can ‘blossom and grow’ and reach their full potential.

As a school we place great emphasis on reading; the key building block for future learning. By placing reading at the heart of our curriculum, we ensure full access to our varied and exciting curriculum.  Our work is underpinned by quality texts that create a love for learning, enable the children to develop as confident readers and ensure they can progress across all learning areas.

At St. Marys, we make sure that all learning is given a context and the children influence the content that is taught.  Our children are involved in the evolution of their learning.  They are asked what they want to discover within a topic and how they might go about their learning; so that they are ‘leaders of their own learning’; we believe this approach has significant impact on learning attitudes, creating independence and resilience, whilst nurturing the children’s passion, supporting individuality and personalising their learning.  We aim to ensure that all children challenge themselves to succeed.

We recognise that children will excel in different areas of the curriculum and as such, we ensure our broad and balanced curriculum teaches the specific knowledge and skills for all areas.  We draw on our locality and the external factors that surround and shape our community to support this. This includes involving the parents in their children’s learning.  It is through working together and celebrating together that all children can thrive.

Working in unison, is our inner curriculum of values-based thinking.  We have formed a link with a school in Malawi, through a Christian organisation called, Starfish Malawi.  Both schools learn about aspects of each other’s lives, environments and curriculum contents. Key concepts studied include, global citizenship, conflict resolution, diversity, human rights, interdependence, social justice, sustainable developments and values and perceptions.

We believe that it is essential to teach key values and empower children.  Our values-based curriculum is our way of promoting and enhancing the children’s social, moral, spiritual, emotional and academic well-being.  At St. Marys all children develop academically and personally and they are ready to play their part in their community and society as a whole.

A Topic Approach

We aim for our topics to:

Generate interest, curiosity and a thirst for learning

Include real-life, practical and outdoor learning experiences

Promote children’s independence and ability to take ownership of their learning

Provide a meaningful opportunity to learn, develop apply new skills and knowledge

Celebrate learning with special Topic Days which consolidate learning and are shared across the school community in different ways, for example, exhibitions, performances, assemblies, visits, visitors and sharing work on line

Curriculum Content

At St Marys Primary School, we are proud of the curriculum we deliver.  It has been carefully planned to ensure that it gives all pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed.  The skills have been matched to the needs of each year group and ensure that the right knowledge is delivered at the right time. We have developed medium term planning formats that make prior and future learning explicit so that teachers know where each unit fits into the curriculum sequence; vocabulary is reinforced through lesson starters and other retrieval practice activities; staff have access to regular CPD programmes and regular curriculum reviews to focus on next steps.  The staff ensure their curriculum is ambitious and inclusive and encourages all children to challenge themselves.