Whole School Curriculum Statement
St Katherine’s Church of England Primary School
Curriculum Design Statement:
Intent Implementation Impact
The journey to becoming the unique child starts here.
“Love your neighbour as yourself” Mark 12:31
We are committed to meeting the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Curriculum and the Primary National Curriculum.
At St Katherine’s Church of England Primary School, we want our children to be happy and to thrive in a constantly changing world.
Our curriculum is driven not only by our educational aims but also by our Christian values:
Friendship, Trust, Thankfulness, Hope, Wisdom, Love, Courage and Koinonia
When these values are seen in our daily lives and within our community, we know we will be guided in the right direction and follow the commandment from Jesus to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.
(Gospel of Mark Chapter 12 verse 31).
Intent
We intend our curriculum to serve the diverse needs of all our pupils, to reflect our local context and our identified curriculum ‘drivers’:
Spirituality
Diversity
Environment
Possibilities
Our curriculum will be a broad and balanced one; one which opens doors to future success and promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of all our pupils. Children will be offered experiences in all areas – linguistic, mathematical, scientific, technological, physical and creative as well as numerous opportunities to engage in extra-curricular activities. Our curriculum will consider the possibilities for learning, not just in structured lessons, but in the spaces in between, the wider school environment and in the behaviour and values of all those working in the school.
Our curriculum will deliver appropriate and ambitious possibilities and experiences to enable our pupils to become confident and responsible citizens. We will provide the necessary ‘cultural capital’ to give our children the vital background knowledge required to be thoughtful members of our community, and the wider world. Cultural capital is gained through exposure to a wide variety of texts; rich and varied subject specific, academic and literary vocabulary; wide general knowledge; possibilities of experiencing the arts (theatre, museums and music) and an understanding of British values
We will provide a coherent, structured and academic curriculum which leads to sustained mastery of a broad spectrum of subject topics, inspiring children to nurture a passion for learning and enabling them to become successful, independent and motivated thinkers and learners. At a basic level, children will acquire the fundamental foundations of every subject; then proceed to an advanced level where they learn to make appropriate decisions to apply them and finally, mastery will allow them to apply these fundamental foundations in an inventive way – knowledge precedes creativity.
Finally, we intend our curriculum to have clear ‘end-points’. For this, we have embraced Chris Quigley’s Milestones. These provide a progression model of ‘threshold concepts’, which are concepts explored across a subject, not just within a topic, which capture the essence of the most important aspects of that subject. For example, in History, the investigation and interpretation of evidence. The milestones provide clear evidence of what a child is expected to know at the end of a two-year period of study.
Implementation
Our curriculum will be designed and delivered to ensure that teaching, assessment and feedback all lead to long-term learning - mastery takes time and it is vital that teaching and learning take into account evidence from cognitive science which supports this. The content of our curriculum will be subject specific and make intra-curricula links to strengthen children’s grasp of all the threshold concepts.
Impact
The impact of our curriculum will be assessed using progression and destinations data – the latter being judged at the end of each milestone. Our goal is for the majority of pupils to have sustained mastery of subject content. We will carefully monitor pupils to ensure they are on track to reach the expectations of the curriculum and we will constantly reflect and review to adapt to the ever- changing needs of the children.
St Katherine’s recognises that pupils’ achievements are not just measured in academic results and qualifications but in how successfully children are developed as well-rounded citizens. At the end of the Primary stage of their journey to becoming a unique child, the impact of our curriculum can be measured by the extent to which our children have developed the knowledge and skills they need to excel and become an ambitious, creative and curious generation of the future.
‘I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.’
Louisa May Alcott