‘Where minds blossom and love grows’
‘The Child continues to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.’
Luke 2:40
#CatholicLife #Achievement #Reading #Enrichment
Curriculum Intent
Our curriculum is framed by shared catholic values, high expectations and high ambition for all our learners. At St. Joseph’s we are proud to offer an inclusive and nurturing learning environment that enables our pupils to be inspired and thrive to reach their full potential, regardless of background or barrier to learning. Our aim is to provide all our children with a broad and enriching curriculum that inspires and motivates them to learn and become well-rounded individuals. We want to give our children the solid foundations that our young people need when growing up in a multi-cultural and diverse society by giving them social and cultural experiences that will broaden their understanding of the wider world. Enrichment days and activities such as Science weeks, RE visits, Forest School days, trips, art weeks, sports events to name a few are the additions to our curriculum to help provide the children with the skills, values and experiences to prepare them for their future lives. This is underpinned with a clear and comprehensive behaviour curriculum where our pupils understand the need for good learning attitudes, few distractions, clear routines for good classroom management, reinforcement and recognition of effort, responding to feedback, collaboration and a ‘go for it’ attitude.
The curriculum has the content, coverage and sequencing necessarily for all pupils to receive their entitlement. It is to be delivered with high-quality teaching and learning to meet the needs of our pupils, with appropriately timed and pupil specific interventions, a caring and nurturing perspective and involving our families and the wider community. This is to assist and encourage our pupils’ self confidence, self-esteem, active participation in their own learning journey and social interactions.
Our curriculum is broad and literacy rich. Schemes of learning are underpinned by evidence, research and cognitive science. There is an emphasis on transcription, oracy, fluency, questioning and vocabulary acquisition alongside retention and recall. Language and vocabulary are deliberately planned and taught alongside our text rich curriculum and modelled reading.
Learning is deliberately sequenced for robust progression. Specific skills are discreetly taught and practised so that they become transferable. Disciplinary skills involve ‘how’ to learn and think like a subject expert, moving beyond simple facts. Substantive knowledge and concepts are mapped out in each subject with key knowledge being revisited and reinforced across the year and across the year phases.
Lessons activate prior learning, build on skills and deepen knowledge and understanding. Learning, vocabulary and content is cumulative and content is learned, retrieved and built upon.
Curriculum Implementation
Saint Joseph’s has a coherent school wide model of pedagogy across the school and across subjects. This forms our responsive teaching model and includes:
Connect – retrieval of prior knowledge
Explain – vocabulary explicitly taught with core content explained
Example – explicit high-quality teacher modelling – quality instruction given (I do)
Attempt – guided practice (We do)
Apply – independent practice, application of new concept (You do)
challenge – deepen understanding
Through a united approach and high expectations, all classes promote a culture of: high challenge, low threat. From the very start of our pupils’ time in the school, they have clear and high expectations in their work and this is evidenced in pupils’ books across all age groups. Assessment is finely tuned to identify and respond to positives and aspects needing improvement.
Curriculum Impact
Every pupil can read, write and speak with fluency and accuracy
Every pupil demonstrates fluency, reasoning and problem solving with knowledge and skills
All pupils make progress
Every pupil, regardless of background or barrier to learning reaches their full potential
Every pupil to learn new ideas by reference to ideas they already know
Every pupil understands the connection between achievement and good learning attitudes and skills
Every pupil understands and recognise school / Gospel Values in themselves and each other
If you have any questions about our curriculum, then please contact Mrs Hamilton who is our Curriculum Leader.
Take a look at our curriculum planning on individual subject pages. There you will find our Curriculum Maps , Curriculum Long Term Overviews and medium Term Plans. Also, see the Year Group pages to see the curriculum in action.