St. Patrick’s Catholic Primary School: Curriculum Policy
Intent:
St Patrick’s curriculum is designed to ensure that all children achieve. Our curriculum aims to provide children with learning opportunities to develop knowledge, understanding and lifelong skills.
Our mission statement is
Belonging, Caring, Sharing safe in the arms of God’s love
We aim to ensure that all children:
- Learn in an environment which develops his or her full potential: academically, spiritually, socially and morally.
- Are provided with a book-rich, broad and balanced curriculum which enriches and challenges them to be ambitious, articulate and resilient learners.
- Are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary for their future learning and success.
Implementation:
A coherently planned book based, academic curriculum:
The reasons for a book based curriculum:
- Books create the perfect context for purposeful writing to take place
- We can create immersive experiences for children that provide a platform for learning
- The trickier elements of the curriculum can be taught by ‘stealth
- Literature can create incredible resonance when children are guided through it
- Books ask more questions than give answers and this creates critical readers
- Book-based provision creates opportunities for purposeful published outcomes
- It creates opportunities for children to develop empathy by relating to characters and exploring others’ lives
- Children will emulate the style of known authors and develop literary language
(The literary curriculum research)
Underpinned by our school and Gospel values (including British values), curriculum drivers, learning habits, our academic curriculum uses either the EYFS or the National Curriculum as the basis for content and expectations. We have structured this so that each year group has:
- A clear list of what must be covered (Long term curriculum map for each year group).
- A clear set of vocabulary for each unit to extend the knowledge of our children.
- A clear progression grid for each Key Stage.
Curriculum maps for each year group ensures each teacher has clarity as to what to cover. The curriculum is successfully implemented to ensure pupils’ progression in knowledge and the development of transferable knowledge for each subject in order to shape pupils as, for example, historians, geographers etc.
Out content is mostly taught subject specifically however a topic theme runs through some areas. Continuous provision, in the form of daily routines, replaces the teaching of some aspects of the curriculum and, in other cases, provides retrieval practise for previously learned content.