Curriculum Statement
Our vision: Care, Grow and Flourish in God’s Loving Hands.
Parental Quotes: January 2023 Survey
“Our children love attending St Mary’s and often come home keen to discuss their learning, whether it’s something new or something that challenges their existing knowledge. For example, our oldest loves learning new methods in Maths, and has picked up a new musical instrument, while our youngest loved the numerous opportunities to sing, especially around Christmas nativity time, and loves making progress with his reading. Both boys love PE and the opportunities they have to enrich their skills, such as Sports Day, after school club with football.”
“We are so grateful to the teachers and headteacher who inspire and teach our students and help them learn, love and respect. They do it in the most professional and beautiful way – which also likely explains why our children have so much love and respect for them. We couldn’t be prouder of St Mary’s. Exceptional in every way.”
Pupil Comments January 2023:
I am most proud of how I have been working very hard on my spellings and always getting top marks. (Y5 pupil)
I am most proud of getting up in worship and reading out because I am usually quite shy and not confident reading in front of people. (Y6 pupil)
I am proud at how much I learnt about the digestive system. I am also impressed about how fast I learnt my 8 times table (Y4 pupil)
Getting a 25/25 four times on our multiplication check and I am proud of my reading because my accelerated reader scores are going up and so is my reading level (Y4 pupil)
My teacher teaches me new things. Repeating helps with remembering. In maths we sing songs to help us remember our times tables. (Y4 pupil)
I learn new things when the lessons start, they show examples then I know how to do it and they help me remember it by doing the same type of lesson more than one time. (Y5 pupil)
Curriculum Intent:
At St. Mary’s School, learning is our priority; whether it is academic learning; learning to be a good citizen; learning to triumph over challenges or learning to respect ourselves, others and God’s creation. We are inspired by Christian values which are at the heart of our holistic learning approach.
Our curriculum is designed to meet the requirements of the national curriculum and to:
- provide every child with their right to a high quality education embedded in an inspiring and creative curriculum, enriched with opportunities to stretch their individual talents and interests
- ensure every child is heard, understood, respected and valued as a child of God
- enable every child’s learning experience to be enriched with experiential opportunities to ignite curiosity and embed knowledge
- purposefully include all pupils
- enable every child to use well developed oracy skills to think, learn, reason, explore, communicate, create and influence
- develop every child’s ability to be a creative thinker and problem solver
- help every child to develop independence and resilience to enable them to be responsible and accountable for their learning and behaviour
- provide an inclusive sporting curriculum led by PE specialists to improve physical literacy, promote fitness, develop competitiveness and build character
Curriculum Implementation:
Our curriculum is organised into discrete subjects with curriculum links which have been purposefully created. Our aim is to ignite children’s interest and to connect them to the world around them. The subjects incorporate the knowledge and skills of each of the different curriculum areas while promoting the links within and across subjects so that there is continuity and progression, challenge and depth of learning.
Click to view Curriculum Overviews for Reception to Year 6
We aim to help the children understand that the more knowledge they acquire, the more they can develop their understanding of the world around them and begin to think creatively and critically about it.
Our curriculum is extensively enriched with well-planned trips, workshops and experiences which are closely linked to the curriculum objectives. These ensure the children at St. Mary’s School develop the confidence to connect with the opportunities, experiences and resources in their locality and beyond – enabling them to view themselves as important contributors and influencers of their environment.
We are wholly committed to Inclusion at St. Mary’s and strive to meet pupils’ individual needs so that all children can flourish. Click here to read more about how we make the curriculum accessible to learners with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
An overview of each subject can be found on the curriculum subject pages:
Curriculum Enrichment
Our curriculum is extended by a variety of enrichment activities including day visits, workshops, cultural experiences and residential trips from Year 4. We also offer after school clubs and a growing number of lunchtime clubs, which are available throughout the school year. St. Mary’s School has links with local secondary schools and upper KS2 pupils are offered opportunities to experience subject ‘challenge days’ such as Maths and Science in a secondary school environment. Click here to see our teaching and learning policy – Appendix 1 describes enrichment opportunities in a typical year.
Curriculum Impact:
St. Mary’s School uses rigorous triangulated monitoring throughout the year to gauge the impact of the curriculum design. The impact is evidenced as follows:
- The children enjoy their learning and we believe it is this enjoyment of the curriculum that promotes achievement, confidence and good behaviour.
- The range of learning opportunities provided enables the children to develop their own interests, skills and strengths whilst also providing them with new challenges. Children feel safe to try new things.
- The design of our curriculum ensures that the needs of individual and small groups of children can be met within the environment of high quality teaching, supported by targeted, proven interventions where appropriate. This has a very positive impact on children’s outcomes.
- Rigorous assessment and tracking of children’s performance takes place to inform classroom practice, allowing children to make good progress and close attainment gaps.
- A high proportion of children participate in extra-curricular activities.
- Subject Leaders are aware of the strengths and areas for improvement and use this information to produce purposeful action plans that continue to develop the curriculum offer.
For any curriculum based questions, please speak to either of the Deputy Headteachers; Mrs Beechey or Mrs Richardson, who oversee the curriculum across the school.