Curriculum

Our Curriculum Intent

Joy in the Journey

Our starting point for planning and reviewing our curriculum is based on our knowledge of our children, family and community.

What we know and think that has shaped our curriculum decisions and offer…

We know that it is important to ensure our curriculum promotes children’s personal development because of the wide range of families we serve.
We know that it is important to sequence our curriculum in small steps. This will ensure gaps in learning are quickly identified and rapid support is provided.
We know that is important for our children to have high aspirations and a strong sense of self-worth and therefore, we place importance on metacognition and development of character. Our core value of aspiration is at the heart of this thinking.
We know that it is important for our children to have a good vocabulary knowledge to enable them to access age-appropriate learning and therefore, language and vocabulary is a strong feature, with vocabulary identified for learning units.
We know that it is important for our children to learn about Equity, Inclusion, Diversity and Justice and therefore, our curriculum areas, including resources seek to promote a wider view of the world.
We know that it is important for our children to have a good understanding of their locality and surrounding areas and therefore, we have planned opportunities to learn about aspects of knowledge and skills that are within the locality.
We know that it is important for our children to learn about wider aspects of Personal, Social and Emotional education and therefore, we have planned for ‘Wider World’ opportunities on top of the statutory Health and Relationship Education.
We know that it is important for our children to develop spiritually and personally and therefore, we place a significant focus on our core values of faith and friendship.
We know that it is important for our children to be supported to retain their learning and therefore, this has meant our curriculum identifies vertical progression with opportunities to review and build on previous learning. This links to our Teaching and Learning Policy.
Knowing that our children are growing up in an uncertain world, with challenges beyond our own childhood experiences, we have placed importance on our overarching value of Joy. We want every child to be able to experience joy in the journey through the best possible start to their education at St. Francis' school.

Please see each class' curriculum long term plan using the links at the bottom of this page.

Our Schemes of Work

Phonics: We follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds for our systematic synthetic phonics programme for Early Readers progression in reading fluency and comprehension.

Reading: The reading spine for reading practice lessons and reading for pleasure (class novels) is bespoke to our school and is in keeping with our focus on diversity and inclusion.

Maths: We use the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) for our maths learning from EYFS to Y6, which is a Maths Mastery approach.

RE: We use the Blackburn Diocese scheme of work for our RE teaching – ‘Questful RE’.

PE: This is taught by our Higher Level Teaching Assistant in most classes.

Music: We use Kapow.

Design Technology: We use Kapow.

MFL: In Key Stage Two our children learn French as our Modern Foreign Language. We use the iLanguages scheme for this.

Computing: For the computing curriculum we use Purple Mash.

Spelling: Year EYFS to Year 2 use Little Wandle within their phonics sessions. Year 2 children move on to Little Wandle spelling programme. KS2 children use No Nonsense Spelling.

Schemes of Work for all other remaining subjects (writing, science, art, design and technology, history, geography and PSHE) are bespoke to our school.

All subject schemes of work follow the National Curriculum requirements and the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

If you would like further information about the school's curriculum, please speak with your child's class teacher.