St John The Baptist Church of England Primary School
Loving Learning, Building Community, Growing in Faith
Welcome
Curriculum
Curriculum Approach
Our Curriculum Drivers are - Knowledge Building, Diversity, Enrichment
Our staff understand that our children come from a variety of backgrounds. They are aware that many of our pupils have English as an additional language, that we have children from a variety of ethnic minority backgrounds and various religions and that the percentage of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and with SEND is rising as our strategies for identification have improved in recent years. We recognise that our cohort is increasing and that our children come from various localities, which includes children from very varied socio economic backgrounds. With these facts in mind, our curriculum therefore needs to embrace varying viewpoints and beliefs, encourage debate and discussion, be based on the global dimension, give children a good basic skill set and equip them for life and learning beyond St John the Baptist. With this in mind, we encourage our own St John the Baptist values of - Forgiveness, Resilience, Love, Koinonia and Compassion. We feel these are important values for our children to become well rounded citizens in a modern British society.
Our children need to be challenged in their schooling; learning from failures and celebrating successes. At St John the Baptist, we have designed our curriculum with pupils’ learning at the centre. We recognise that a curriculum has to be broad, balanced and offer pupils opportunities to grow and make progress as individuals as well as learners from whatever their starting points may be. We intend to offer our pupils new and exciting experiences through extra-curricular activities and enrichment activities that are designed to build resilience, confidence and self-esteem. We intend for our curriculum to be empowering, enabling pupils to develop their interpersonal skills, creativity and independence. St John the Baptist provides a rich ambitious learning environment, both inside and outside the classroom, which is conducive to high quality teaching and learning and builds a rich cultural capital for all learners. It is our school’s intention to maximise the potential of all pupils, including identifiable cohorts of pupils such as: disadvantaged, English as an Additional Language, summer born, SEND pupils and academically more able pupils, including those who are gifted and talented. We aim to accelerate the learning progress of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils in order to diminish the difference in progress and attainment between them and their peers. The curriculum also makes provision to enable pupils to work at greater depth within age related expectations. This is supported at all levels in the school.
We want our children to achieve well in the next stage of their life. Our curriculum is designed to prepare children for opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of future life, and we strive to do so by offering a broad and balanced curriculum from the children’s first days in the foundation stage through to the end of Year 6. In addition, we actively promote British values to ensure pupils are well prepared for life in modern Britain. Through a combination of learning techniques, we aim to ensure pupils enjoy learning and feel prepared for life beyond school. We want all children to achieve their very best and to become successful adults.
The end point of the pupil journey at St John the Baptist needs to ensure that children can see links and make connections in learning and have real life reasons for learning. We hope that pupils will be motivated by achievement both at the end of their time at the school and in the future so that they will have a positive attitude towards themselves, others and their environment. We aim to develop resilience in our pupils, so they are willing to take risks in their future learning, accepting that making mistakes is an important part of the learning process. By the end of their time at St John the Baptist, we want pupils to have gained good basic skills, have a strong moral, cultural, emotional, spiritual and social purpose, develop healthy minds and healthy bodies and be rounded individuals who believe in their own potential. We want our St John the Baptist pupils to have high standards of behaviour and tolerance by developing respect and responsibility for themselves and others, take an active part in their community and have a desire to go on learning throughout life. We hope they will have self-esteem, self-confidence, self-discipline and will be responsible.
Our curriculum promotes enjoyment of learning through debate, creativity, purpose and relevance. Discussion, communication skills and vocabulary are very important and are planned for within our curriculum so that children can achieve well. Through our school’s curriculum, we seek to promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school. The Curriculum at St John the Baptist has been developed to engage children fully in their own learning by adopting an imaginative, practical and, where relevant, cross-curricular approach, as we believe this results in the optimum learning outcomes. We aim to have a curriculum, which is broad and balanced and provides a wide range of opportunities for pupils to learn. The range of subjects helps pupils acquire knowledge, understanding and skills in all aspects of their education, including linguistic, mathematical, scientific, technical, human and social, physical and artistic learning. The curriculum provides continuity and progression and creates a culture of high expectations, with challenge. We supplement the formal curriculum with extra-curricular opportunities for pupils to extend their knowledge and understanding and to improve their skills in a range of artistic, creative and sporting activities. The curriculum promotes all forms of equality and fosters greater understanding of and respect for people of all faiths and those of no faith, races, genders, ages, disability and sexual orientations. It keeps pupils safe from the dangers of abuse, sexual exploitation, radicalisation and extremism. It contributes to pupils’ behaviour and welfare, including their physical, mental and personal well-being, safety and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The curriculum recognises the crucial role that parents play in their child’s education. The curriculum works in tandem with the St John the Baptist values. It provides skills-based as well as knowledge-based learning and ensures continuity and progression within the school and between phases of education. We want our pupils to learn more than mere facts and content; we want them to acquire the skills to be good learners. Our curriculum encourages a respect for the school and its environment so that learning is a positive and pleasurable experience for all.
Our curriculum is structured so that skills and knowledge build from phase to phase and is carefully planned for. We consider carefully the transition from one phase to another. There is a good breadth and coverage to our curriculum, which is supported by enrichment days and weeks and extra-curricular activities. We want to make learning engaging, practical and exciting to ensure that it is embedded in the long-term memory. There is a commitment to building on skills and knowledge throughout a child’s journey in all areas.
Curriculum Compliance Statement
Our curriculum policies comply with the 2020 Equalities act and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014, ensuring that the curriculum is accessible to those with disabilities and SEN. All children at St John’s receive excellent teaching in the classroom, which has adapted to meet the needs of all of the children in the class. Approaches such as explicit instruction, scaffolding and flexible grouping are all key components of high-quality teaching and learning for all pupils.
If a child has been identified as needing additional support, or as having special educational needs or disabilities, teachers may also:
- Use different resources to support their learning.
- Provide in class support for small groups with a teaching assistant.
- Set children individual targets and suggest strategies that will be put in place to help them make progress in their learning.
Further information on how the curriculum policy meets the individual needs of the pupils in our school can be found in our school SEND Information Report and the School SEND policy.