Curriculum Statement

St Paul’s Catholic Primary School

‘Do Everything with love.’

Curriculum Statement

Our Vision

Our Vision is to provide a curriculum that is broad and ambitious for all learners and to give ALL pupils the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Our curriculum is rooted in the Gospel values and reflects our local context. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is at the heart of our curriculum and permeates our daily life as Catholics. We want our pupils to be fluent readers, with a love of literacy, to communicate effectively both orally and written and to have an excellent understanding of mathematics. Pupil’s will be knowledgeable across each of the subject areas through rich and varied curricular provision, which is personalised to their individual needs. Our curriculum has clear end points that the curriculum is building towards and is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge is built upon. This is sequential and progressive from our Nursery through to Year 6. We will encourage our children to have high aspirations, to believe in themselves as learners and in doing so be successful at every stage of their education and beyond.

We will achieve our vision by living out our Mission Statement-

‘Do Everything with Love.’ St Paul’s to the Corinthians

This means that we will....

Show our love for Jesus in everything we say and do
Respect everyone by recognising that God made us all different but equally valued.
Strive for excellence and find ways to share, develop and celebrate our talents.
Promote a safe, happy and enjoyable environment.
Actively support our school, parish and the wider community

The curriculum at St Paul’s firmly underpins our vision and mission statement, from which a culture and ethos is generated that supports the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the whole school community. In the daily living of our Catholic faith, we aim to ensure that Religious Education and spiritual development permeates every aspect of our curriculum so that it is explicit and implicit within our community. Rooted in prayer and lived out in the daily life of the school, pupils and staff are supported to grow in faith and deepen their relationships with God and one another.

The 7 areas of Catholic Social teaching are:

Care for God’s Creation
Call to Family, Community and Participation
Life and Dignity of the Human Person
Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
Rights and Responsibilities
The Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers
Solidarity

Our Curriculum aims to:

Provide a Catholic Christian education based on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, in which the values of the Gospel underpin all aspects of school life;
Provide an environment in which the dignity of each person, as a child of God, is recognised and developed; and to promote the full potential of each child through a curriculum which develops spiritual, academic, social and emotional growth;
Nurture our children and keep our children safe and empower them with the skills to do this for themselves
Provide a curriculum which is broad and ambitious, where children experience the opportunity to learn in a wide range of contexts.
Inspire a love of learning
Provide an excellent standard of education across the curriculum which will enable children to be ready for the next stage of their education and beyond
Develop children to be resilient, curious and reflective learners who work cooperatively with each other
Inspire confident, motivated children who enjoy a challenge
Provide leadership responsibilities for our children

IMPLEMENTATION

The 7 areas of CST have been redesigned into 6 areas whereby each one of the six becomes our focus for each half term. They are child- friendly topic titles.

Autumn 1- God’s Creation

Autumn 2- We are One

Spring 1- We all matter

Spring 2- That’s not fair!

Summer 1- I am responsible

Summer 2 – A powerful world

Each year group has a curriculum jigsaw linked to the CST theme and a high quality core text (a book spine is available for all year groups) is allocated to each year group, half termly. These link with other subjects across the curriculum (where possible).
The curriculum is taught from Nursery up to year 6 and is progressive and sequential from the Early years to the end of Year 6.
Each curriculum subject has a progressive long term skills and knowledge maps which ensures coverage and layering of knowledge overtime written by the subject leader specifically to reflect our schools context and addresses children’s gaps due to lost learning.
Subject leaders have clear roles and responsibilities which include monitoring to ensure progression and coverage of skills and knowledge across the Key Stages.
Subject leaders are appropriately supported and are given time and support to develop their own skills and knowledge
Key concepts are presented clearly so that they are embedded in the long term memory so that children can apply them fluently.
Pre- knowledge and skills are retrieved through starting point assessments and built upon during the learning journey. End point assessments are used to assess knowledge at the end of each topic.
The curriculum is sequenced so that children build on the knowledge and skills that have been taught before and children work towards clearly defined end points.
Subject leaders produce an annual review and action plan in July and this feeds directly into the School Improvement Plan.
Reading is prioritised. It is sequential, developing pupils’ fluency and enjoyment of reading. It is promoted in all subjects. In EY and KS1 the Read Write Inc programme is delivered effectively (RWI) and Destination Reader (DR) is delivered effectively in KS2.
We have specialist teachers in art, music, Spanish and PE which ensure excellent learning in these subjects and good progress over time.
We have a recently reviewed RSE and use ‘Live Life to the Full’ as our main scheme of work (Catholic resource by Ten:Ten) This has been incorporated into our PSHE curriculum
The curriculum is effectively enhanced with a wide range of extra-curricular activities that reflect the needs of the pupils with clubs such as Karate, Dance, Multi- skills, circuits and many more.

All curriculum subjects include memorable experiences and help add knowledge to long term memory. These include Residentials, trips to the theatre, musical and sporting experiences etc
’11 before 11’ is implemented in every year group to give children the knowledge to be educated citizens.

The Senior Leadership Team/Governors oversee the implementation of the curriculum; most subjects have link governors who review the work of the subject leader

IMPACT

We use rigorous triangulated monitoring throughout the year to gage the impact of our curriculum design. Alongside senior leaders, middle leaders and core subject leaders, monitor individual subjects: reviewing learning, evaluating pupil voice, providing individual feedback to move practice forward, celebrating positives and highlighting areas for development. This is identified through half-termly monitoring schedules on key priorities throughout the year.

Our whole school team strengthen our ethos and vision as we work together to reflect upon our curriculum regularly and share outcomes driving forward next steps.

We are mindful of the coverage within the curriculum but the learning is measured through careful analysis of the application of skills across the curriculum; showing how acquisition of knowledge is enhanced dramatically by expectations to evidence quality thinking and demonstrate individual understanding.

The impact of our curriculum is seen in:

High standards and High expectations across the curriculum and work is of good quality
Pupils achieve well in national tests
Pupils are ready for the next stage in their education
Progress which build incrementally year-on-year at a pace and momentum appropriate to the learner. Pupils know more, remember more and can do more.
Pupils read widely and often with fluency and comprehension.
Quality first-hand experiences which are memorable, worthwhile and challenging.
Individuals who value and respect one another and demonstrate our mission in action and live out the Gospel values and aspects of CST daily.

The curriculum is regularly reviewed, developed, monitored and evaluated by the Head teacher, Deputy Head teacher, School Leadership and Management Team, external advisers and governors, leading to improvements and innovation.

Assessment is both formative and summative and progress and attainment are regularly tracked throughout the year.

The curriculum is lively and interesting. Pupils enjoy the wide range of topics they study.’ Ofsted July 2018

‘The curriculum is broad and balanced. Pupils say they enjoy learning through topics such as ‘The Egyptians’ and ‘What a Wonderful World’. Pupils particularly enjoy the homework that is linked to this work. Cross-curricular links are evident in pupils’ books and on displays around the school, for example pupils’ mathematical skills being applied in geography and science lessons.’ Ofsted July 2018

‘Art and music are strengths of the school.’ Ofsted July 2018

‘We have nice trips’ Year 2 Keele Survey 2018 – 2019

‘We have a very good-teaching teacher and teaching assistant, they help us all the times.’ Year 5 Pupil Keele Survey 2018-2019

‘The quality of teaching is good. Teachers have a strong understanding of the needs of their pupils and how to help them succeed.’ Ofsted July 2018

95% of St Paul’s pupils believe we are a good school with 89% liking school. 99% of pupils say that they usually work as hard as they can at school with 94% believing that the work they do in school is very important to them.

Assessing our children’s learning within the curriculum

Day to day assessment is used to inform planning so that all learning is challenging for all pupils. Adults are engaged in an ‘on-going- assessment’ throughout the lessons and will intervene whenever children need redirecting, challenge or support with misconceptions, either as an individual or as a group. It has been recognised that verbal feedback is a vital tool in raising achievement. Marking at the point of learning involves giving effective verbal feedback. A discussion should be accompanied with the ‘VF’ marking code in the pupil’s book with an accompanying note to serve as a permanent record for the pupil and adult about the discussion. (Feedback Policy 2021)

The evidence in the pupils’ books, the quality of teaching and discussions with pupils all combine to show that attainment and progress in RE are good, with some elements of very secure practice observed on the day of the validation. - RE Validation 2019

‘Assessment systems are well established and are carefully used to track the pupils’ progress. Teachers are held to account for the progress of pupils who are at risk of falling behind. Teaching is adjusted, and targeted support put in place to support these pupils as appropriate.’ Ofsted July 2018

Curriculum Statement

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