Curriculum Vision
Our Principles for Learning and Teaching:
All children are entitled to:
- develop spiritually, morally and as members of their community and the wider community;
- be engaged in their learning and to be active learners; discovering and finding out;
- understand what they have achieved and know what to do to make progress;
- be independent, enthusiastic and self-motivated learners; raising their own questions;
- time to evaluate and reflect on their learning;
- have their different learning styles recognised;
- teaching that inspires their learning;
- teaching that encourages them to be creative;
- be challenged and enjoy learning, as well as encouraging problem solving.
We give high priority to teaching the fundamentals of reading, writing and maths, every day, to ensure that all pupils acquire the basic skills for learning and life. These skills are used and practised across other subjects. We teach the National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, using a wide range of strategies. We give children opportunities to work on their own, in pairs and in groups. We value the importance of talk as a tool for learning and invest time in this.
It is important to us to provide a broad range of exciting, relevant and creative opportunities that enrich our children’s learning, such as: wow events, trips, visitors and links with our parish church. Our school also has specialist coaches/teachers for Music, MFL and PE.
Saint Joseph’s Infant and Junior Schools
Curriculum Statement
Intent:
At Saint Joseph’s Infant and Junior Schools our Mission is to ‘Follow Christ’s Footsteps in Love’. Through our curriculum, we strive to develop the skills, knowledge and learning attitudes of our pupils so that they may become the best that they can be.
Our Catholic values help children to develop their social and moral code, as they build their sense of uniqueness and self-worth as an individual. We believe all children deserve the opportunity to nurture their individual talents and to achieve their true potential. We aim to encourage the children to develop their understanding of their local and national heritage and their role in modern Britain today. We encourage them to embrace all that multi-cultural Britain has to offer them and develop their understanding of the global world, within which they are a citizen of the 21st Century. To enable each child to achieve their full potential and make the most of the opportunities and choices offered to them, we aim to provide a secure and stimulating environment that promotes independence, self-esteem and health and well-being.
As a Catholic school, the precepts of Catholic education remain at our core. This includes the pursuit of excellence and preparing our children as world citizens of the 21st Century. In order for this to be achieved our children need high levels of literacy and numeracy.
We also recognise that parents are the primary educators of the faith and we work closely with the local parish and community in embedding these strong links with our parish and our local community we foster an ethos of serving both individuals and society.
Implementation:
When planning a curriculum, St. Joseph’s has had to recognise the very wide social and economic backgrounds of our families.
We recognise R.E as a core subject, so we adhere to a diocesan-wide curriculum and follow ‘Dr. Margaret Carswell’s RE Framework’.
In the Foundation Stage, all children follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum which is centred around a child initiated ‘play’ approach. Very young children, who cannot read and write, express their feelings through play. Learning happens through play, it is the way to discover new things about the world; develop new skills and build new relationships.
When children begin school they rapidly gain new knowledge and learn new concepts and skills. As they progress through school their work becomes more demanding and challenging.
All children in Key Stage One and Key Stage Two are taught the 2014 National Curriculum, which consists of the core subjects of English, Maths and Science together with the foundation subjects and RE.
Being able to read is the most important skill a student will learn. Reading has far reaching implications for lifelong confidence and well-being. We are aware that learning to read is challenging for some of our students.
Read, Write Inc. is a synthetic phonic program that provides a systematic approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling. Read, Write Inc. is fully compatible with the broad and rich curriculum available at St. Joseph’s Infant and Junior Schools.
Read, Write Inc. gives us:
- Systematic, structured teaching
- Using simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic processes
- Clear importance of speaking and listening
- Encouragement of collaborative working
- Clear role for parents/carers
Impact:
The outcomes of the curriculum are measured by the attainment and progress made by the children. Put simply how much the children know and remember including whether or not the children have mastered a particular skill. Teachers continually use assessment of the children’s responses and the work they produce to measure impact. Subject leaders play an important part in the success of the curriculum by leading a regular programme of monitoring, evaluation and review. This includes book scrutinies, learning walks and lesson observations to measure the impact of teaching and learning. The SMT use data from all areas to make comparisons across groups, and within groups as well as keeping track of children’s progress and attainment from point to point to see they are keeping on track. We also use pupil interviews to gauge children’s engagement and enjoyment of the curriculum. Staff complete a topic review at the end of each topic and this is used to inform future planning and improve teaching and learning. Teachers and leaders also have the school’s curriculum assessment data to support judgements on the impact our curriculum is having.
The leadership team in consultation with staff and children regularly review and renew the school curriculum to ensure all elements are fit for purpose.
The curriculum in more detail can be found on the relevant Year Group curriculum pages.
