Curriculum

Our entire curriculum and school culture is based on and around the teachings of Christ and children are taught to become kind, respectful, forgiving and caring young people. Care is taken to make links between the Gospels and our day to day lessons, behaviour and treatment of others.

St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School staff have collaborated to create a school curriuclum with the intention to be relevant for our cohort of pupils. This includes:

·       Being underpinned by the Gospel values and virtues (based on the CSPP)

·       Creating a language rich environment

·       Instilling a love of reading and reaching reading fluency

·       providing experiences to children, which they may not otherwise access

Our intent is to create learning that is relevant to our pupils: language-rich, inspires a passion for reading and brings exciting curriculum experiences to our learners. We aimed to create an ambitious, coherently planned, broad and balanced curriculum which is implemented in planning engaging lessons aiming to positively impact the learning of all pupils in our school and, as a result, improve outcomes.

Whilst this curriculum is taught and learned, it will continue to be developed, where necessary, to reflect the needs of our learners.

Below you can find our knowledge and skills progression and topic maps for our school. As we continue with the development of our provision, these will change and be added to accordingly. 

For more information on the curriculum for years 1-6, please follow the link to the 2014 National Curriculum:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum

For more information on the EYFS statutory framework, please follow this link: 
https://foundationyears.org.uk/eyfs-statutory-framework/

As a Catholic school, our mission is to support the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all of our pupils, rooted in the wisdom and teaching of the Church. The education of children in human sexuality is an important, precious and privileged responsibility. The Church teaches us that this is very much a partnership with parents, in which parents are the ‘first educators’ of their children on these matters; ultimately, you confer on us the right to co-educate your children with you.

We have been researching various programmes that are available and have decided to adopt Life to the Full by Ten Ten Resources. Ten Ten is an award-winning Catholic educational organisation that is well respected and very experienced in this field of work. Life to the Full has been approved by our diocese. Furthermore, Ten Ten have entered into a partnership with the Catholic Education Service and the Department for Education to provide training for teachers in Catholic schools on the subject of the new statutory curriculum. Therefore, we are confident that this programme is a very good fit for our school.

Through their programme, Ten Ten understand the foundational role that parents have in educating and nurturing their children on these matters. Within the programme, they have built-in resources available on the Parent Portal which will not only keep you informed about what is being taught in school but will also give you the opportunity to engage your children in discussion, activity and prayer.

The core themes for each year group are:

• Families and people who care for me
• Caring friendships
• Respectful relationships
• Online relationships
• Being Safe – This includes the concept of personal privacy

All teaching RSE will take in a safe learning environment and be underpinned by our school ethos and values. A variety of opportunities will be provided for pupils to ask questions to further their understanding and to find out more about what affects them personally. The Ten Ten RSE scheme of learning will run alongside RE and well-being activities which are covered weekly in every class.

The Ten Ten scheme is Split into three modules:

• Created and Loved by God
• Created to Love Others
• Created to Live in Community

For more information, please see our RSE Policy and RSE whole school curriculum plan for Summer 2021 below. 

At St Mary's Catholic Primary School we follow the Read Write Inc. scheme for phonics and reading throughout EYFS and KS1