Curriculum
Our Curriculum Intent
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.
- 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 personally and therefore, we place a significant focus on Loving Faith and Loving People through our curriculum offer in order for children to Love Learning. This is our vision of the school.
- 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.
Using this information, we constructed our Curriculum Model, which guides our decisions:
With what we know as our starting point and after careful decisions around Schemes of Work, we believe our curriculum serves our community well: it utilises community links such as the canal and other geographical features, local artists and businesses and it promotes diversity and inclusion to ensure that our children and families are able to investigate life beyond their immediate experiences.
Our curriculum maps outline all aspects of academic learning, in progressive and incremental steps, as well as promoting personal development such as career aspirations, spiritual development, mental health and wellbeing, leadership opportunities, community links, opportunities for public speaking and presentations, extra-curricular activities and charitable work.
Continual review of what we offer will ensure that our curriculum continues to evolve and so achieve our school's vision:
'As a church school, we aspire to live life in all its fullness; Loving Faith. Loving People. Loving Learning. - following the footsteps of Jesus.'
"I have come to give you life and life in all its fullness." John 10:10
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.
RE: We use the Blackburn Diocese scheme of work for our RE teaching – ‘Questful RE’.
PE: We have specialist PE teachers (FUNDA), and we follow their scheme of work.
Music: We use Kapow.
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.
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.