Curriculum Statement

Curriculum Statement:

“Together as God’s Children we will love, learn, grow, inspire. Let your light shine!”

The staff at our school make every effort to enrich the lives of our children. Our Curriculum is planned firstly around the teachings of our Catholic Faith, to be inclusive of all learners, to not only be educational, but also enriching, challenging and enjoyable. The school day is carefully planned to ensure children gain maximum benefit of an exciting education and other extra-curricular activities. We include the children in their choice of lunch every morning and carry out the daily mile to make sure we are looking after our health.

The teaching of Religious Education is not only taught as a discrete subject but much more importantly the practice of the Catholic Faith is paramount and fundamental in the life of the school and permeates everything that we do. The children are always learning about and learning from their Religion and deepening their thoughts by putting their learning into real life context. Religious Education at our school is the teaching of the Catholic Faith and the presentation of the whole Christian message to our pupils; the desire for God is written in our hearts. We are created for communion with God, and truth and happiness can be found in Him. To reach this goal for our children it is essential that Religious Education in our school is about developing knowledge and understanding of God, of Jesus and His Church, and of the beliefs of the Catholic Church At our school the Religious Education programme that the school follows is the Come & See scheme. Other resources including CARITAS in Action and CAFOD are used for additional activities.  As a Catholic school all our worship, assemblies and Religious Education are in accordance with the rites and teachings of the Catholic Church.

The foundation to a successful education lie in the acquisition of basic skills. Without these skills, children will not make the educational progress that is expected of them. At our school, we place great emphasis on learning basic skills in our Nursery and Reception class. Children will be taught basic number skills and reasoning and applying through the White Rose Hub scheme and also using ‘Fluency in 5’ ‘Classroom Secrets’ and ‘Timetables Rockstars’. Children will be taught phonics, through the use of the Read Write Inc programme, basic spelling rules and reading skills using ‘Spelling Shed’, ‘No Nonsense Spelling’ the Oxford Reading Tree Scheme and Guided Reading whole class texts. Our aim is that when pupils leave Year Six, they will be highly numerate and literate, with a real joy and enthusiasm for learning. We are a Dyslexia Friendly School and use a variety of strategies to make provision for all pupils learning styles.

ICT is also central to the curriculum and is integrated into a range of subjects. The school is well resourced with Interactive Whiteboards in all teaching rooms, which allows us to create visually stimulating lessons and greater opportunities for interactive learning. In addition, the school has a mobile computer trolley of 30 computers and class sets of tablets to be used. There are additional laptops in each classroom to allow for ICT to be used as part of learning at all points of the day to challenge and support learners.

The Science curriculum is delivered using resources from Rising Stars and KENT and during British Science Week, guest speakers are invited into school to deliver workshops. Other Scientific experiences enhance lessons and having our own mini Farm and allotment at the school allows us to explore first hand living things and animals.

We embed the Arts into our curriculum as a way of nurturing children to access basic skills through different learning styles as well as challenging themselves further in different areas. We value the Arts for their intrinsic quality, promoting self-esteem, leadership opportunities and providing an interesting stimulus for all areas. Aside from regular PE and dance, art, technology and music lessons, many art forms, including drama are used across all areas of the curriculum. In addition to this, we organise a number of themed weeks throughout the year: Anti Bullying Week, Science Week, ARTS Week and Online Safety Week. The School has a well-established choir ‘Jozekidz’ and a Music Mark Award for 2018/19.

Sport is also an area where the pupils re encouraged to participate and excel. We were awarded ‘Gold’ for the School Games award in July 2018 and participate in many tournaments across the years including Swimming Galas, Football, Hockey, Dodgeball, Hockey and Archery. Our enthusiasm for sport build confidence and self-esteem of pupils of all abilities and is accessible to all. We have a range of afterschool sports clubs, such as Dance, a Y3/4 and a Y5/6 football team, Multiskills for KS1 and 2, Gymnastics and Rugby.

In addition, a range of educational experiences also support our school curriculum. Visits are arranged for all classes and include, amongst others, trips to museums and places of interest linked to learning in History and Geography and a residential to Robinwood in Year Six. In 2016 we had an educational visit to Paris and we hope to do this again with support from parents in the future. We look for ways to enrich the curriculum by inviting in expertise including Music Action Harmonise Project to give children experience of Refugee and Asylum Seekers and the Heartstone Project to promote acceptance and tolerance.

Through the School Council, ECO Council, School Games Committee, Digital Champions, Chaplaincy GIFT Teams and CARITAS Ambassadors pupils have many platforms to ensure they have a voice that is heard and to allow them to make an active contribution to school life. Our children also play their part in the universal community by fundraising and raising awareness for global and community issues.We are an Emotionally Friendly School and employ the services of CARITAS to provide SEMH support for children and families. We also work with CAMHS in school once per fortnight from the IReach Pilot and buy into the Speech and Language Therapy service from the NHS to support interventions and learning in school. We have a strong SEND system in school in order to make the very best provision for all children. Each year we run ‘Pyramid Club’ for Y3 children with staff trained by the Educational Psychology Service.

We are well supported by our local Irlam community and have strong links with Hamilton Davies Trust, the Irlam and Cadishead Times, Tesco and Cadishead Brass Band. These community links open up wider opportunities for our pupils and families. We also open our school to our community socially at every opportunity including Afternoon Tea’s and Coffee mornings to celebrate Saint’s Day and Polish Independence.

To find out more about our curriculum, please look at our Year Curriculum documents which provide more detail about what each year group is learning each term. Also, please feel free to talk to your child's teacher about our curriculum.

Sometimes there may be variations made based upon the needs and interests of the children. Each class teacher will inform parents of the curriculum plans for the year groups and any different topics to be covered.

 

The National Curriculum link - The National Curriculum