St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School

Curriculum Intent

Whole School Curriculum Intent

At St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School our intention is that our curriculum extends opportunity, raises aspiration, opens children’s eyes to Jesus and God’s love and the world beyond their immediate environment, enabling them to live happy, healthy and productive lives and inspire them to become lifelong learners.

We aim to build resilience and encourage a positive growth mindset amongst our children as it is often through mistakes we learn the most.

Everyone at St Thomas a Becket follows the Eight Learning Characters which encourages our children to:

• Concentrate
• Don’t give up
• Be cooperative
• Be curious
• Have a go
• Use your imagination,
• Keep improving
• Enjoy learning

Our curriculum is focused on the development of children’s knowledge and skills across all primary subjects with the aim of ensuring pupils are ready for the next stage of their learning and lives. Our families are key partners in developing their children’s knowledge and we are grateful to everyone who supports their child’s learning.

Our curriculum is developed on our own unique context and identity as a ‘Catholic, Coastal and Diverse’ school and wider community. We are developing a curriculum which is built on these three central themes by interweaving them throughout the wider curriculum and ensuring local physical and social areas of interest and landmarks are used as solid examples for the children to build their learning. We also ensure a global dimension through our own diverse community, further resources and opportunities in the curriculum and special assemblies and events.

We are working on making sure that our children develop skills and memorable knowledge, not only in reading, writing and maths but across an interlinked curriculum in order to help them to see themselves as, for example, Historians, Geographers, Scientists, Artists and Composers. Each ‘long term’ the children work through a curriculum where links are made across subjects.

In the Autumn term the curriculum is focused on the theme of ‘Discover’ and historical skills and knowledge are developed across the curriculum.

In the Spring term, the focus is ‘Explore’, where geographical and scientific skills and knowledge are developed across the wider curriculum.

In the Summer term, ‘Create’ becomes the focus for learning through art, design and musical skills and knowledge.

The school is on a journey to develop the curriculum further to enable children to make links across curriculum subject area skills and knowledge and use these confidently in all their learning, especially through their reading, writing and maths.

We are a reflective school and continually strive to improve our teaching and learning in light of the latest research and this has included a focus on how to improve children’s long-term memory of the knowledge provided in school.

Reading is given a high priority in our curriculum as it is the key to accessing the whole curriculum and making connections within and between subjects. Our learning journeys help to ensure there are links like these and we keep on reminding the children of them.

We are working to make sure that we continue to foster a whole school culture based on a love of reading. This begins in Reception and carries on into Key Stage 1 where we ensure phonics is rapid and robust and that children are reminded of sounds taught so that it is repeated to enable the children to embed them successfully. Staff wish for all children to have exciting reading areas to attract and motivate them to read and foster a love of learning.

In their first year in school our Reception children follow the school Curriculum, which is developed around the needs and interests of the cohort developed to progress their knowledge, skills and understanding through a combination of both play-based learning and teacher focused led sessions. Pupils learn to share, work independently and play with others.

In Maths we follow a mastery approach where all pupils are taught to their year group expectation with challenge for all children, as well as higher prior attainers and support for those who need it.

At St Thomas a Becket we are keen to promote the diversity of life and celebrate difference and promote respect for all. Through our teaching, learning and behaviour expectations, we give pupils the knowledge and understanding of how discrimination and prejudiced behaviour is dealt with, including the prevention of bullying.

We place the Gospel Values of The Beatitudes, as taught by Christ at The Sermon of the Mount, at the heart of all we do. They, and the British Values promoted by the Government, form our behaviour and personal development approaches. They are taught at the beginning of each term and always referred to throughout in order for the children to know them and embed them to ensure they grow to be active, well adjusted, responsible and positive participants in our society and globally.

We are an inclusive school with a curriculum that matches the needs of individual pupils and resources are deployed where necessary to help reduce individual learning gaps.

Assessment is used to identify children’s progress and find out areas where they are less confident. These assessments inform teacher’s lesson planning. Assessment is carried out across the curriculum through teaching strategies that capture in the class ‘live assessment’ through questioning, instant and regular feedback (by teachers and through peer and self-assessment during the lesson). Children complete summative assessments to show progress in reading, writing and maths. They are also assessed across the wider curriculum through teacher observation, questioning, accumulative formative assessment and summative tests.

Please take look at our individual subject areas for further information on:

• the ‘intent’ of why we teach a subject
• the ‘implementation’ of how we deliver this through teaching strategies
• the ‘impact’ - the outcomes of learning and how we support children to identify their next steps and make the best progress they can to achieve their full potential by the end of each key stage.

We believe our curriculum prepares our children well for their secondary education and imparts the life skills necessary to be confident, resilient, independent and active citizens who contribute positively to society in an ever changing world. We aim to provide our children with the cultural capital they need to understand, appreciate and respect difference in the world, its people and to lead successful lives. This capital is introduced through visits and events such as to our local churches, libraries, ‘Towner Art Gallery’, theater visits and Residential in Year 6 to ‘Fairthorne Manor’ and visitors through our ‘Money Management’ sessions, ‘Flat Stan’ (First Aid skills) and ‘One World Week’.

At St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School we continually work towards creating a curriculum that is ambitious and is designed to ensure all children are happy and enthusiastic life long learners.