Curriculum Overview

St Gerard’s Catholic Primary School

Curriculum

Curriculum Vision Statement

Our curriculum is framed by shared Catholic values, high expectations and the highest ambition for all our pupils.

Intent

At St Gerard’s Catholic Primary School we are committed to teaching a broad and balanced curriculum that is stimulating, motivating and encourages pupils to become independent and aspirational learners. Our curriculum is:

Connected
Cumulative
Coherent

We hope to instil a love of learning that promotes enquiry and encourages pupils to apply themselves to the best of their ability. We place a high value on vocabulary, knowledge and skills thus ensuring a holistic approach to learning. Parents are regularly invited into school to share in their work through maths mornings, stay and read, stay and pray, shared prayer and liturgy.

Our curriculum is designed to:

Enable pupils to build respectful relationships with their peers, school staff and the wider community.
Nurture resilience in learners so that they may persevere when things get tough.
Challenge pupils to take responsibility for the choices that they make within their learning and social interactions.
Develop and strengthen pupil’s literacy skills so that they are able to effectively speak, listen, read and write. We believe that these skills are fundamental in accessing lifelong learning.
Support pupils in becoming competent mathematicians who can utilise their subject knowledge in everyday life.
Explicitly up-level pupil’s vocabulary in order that they can access all areas of learning with a reduced cognitive load.
Offer pupils the opportunity to learn about a breadth of subjects, gradually deepening their understanding of key concepts within and across year groups, through carefully planned teaching sequences.
Support pupils in achieving the highest possible standard from a range of starting points, through carefully adapted lessons to match pupil’s needs.

For Religious Education (RE), The national Come & See Scheme of Learning is followed in EYF, Y5 &Y6. The Pilot Be Still and Know Scheme is followed in Y1-4. This is supplemented with a wealth of resources from CAFOD, My Mission and diocesan links.

For Maths, The White Rose Maths Scheme of Learning is followed across school. This develops the fundamental maths skills of: fluency, reasoning and problem solving. This scheme is supplemented, particularly from resources within NCETM. St Gerard’s is a member of the Archimedes NE maths Hub, from which new mathematical ideas, research and CPD opportunities are shared and accessed. This comprehensive curriculum model is based on research around the working memory, cognitive overload, and retrieval and links with our NPCAT maths responsive teaching model.

St Gerard’s implement the Unity Schools Partnership CUSP increased frequency curriculum, model for most subjects. The model is written and produced by Alex Bedford of Unity Schools Partnership. This comprehensive curriculum model is also based heavily on research around the working memory, cognitive overload, and retrieval. The curriculum resources support teachers to plan and teach History, Geography, Science, Art and Design, Design and Technology, French, Music and English- Reading and Writing.

For RHE and PSHE, we are following the Ten:Ten ‘Life to the Full Plus’ programme across school. This links in with our wealth of enrichment activities which promote all personal, social, health and educational needs throughout the academic year.

Kapow is used for the computing curriculum.

PE Passport is used for the teaching and assessment of Physical Education.

Implementation

In all of our lessons:

Specific skills are discreetly taught and practised so that they become transferable.
Lessons activate prior learning, build on skills and deepen knowledge and understanding.
Learning, vocabulary and content is cumulative; content is learned, retrieved and built upon.
Substantive knowledge and concepts are mapped out in each subject area; key knowledge is revisited and reinforced.

St Gerard’s has a coherent school wide model of pedagogy across the school and across subjects. This can be seen in the responsive teaching model:

Retrieve: Remember more, know more, learn more

Explain and Model: The teacher model subject matter clearly and prompts discussion

Check for Understanding: Effective questioning to assess understanding and identify misconceptions, accurately; provide clear, direct feedback; responding and adapting their teaching as necessary

Applied Learning: Provide a challenging, ambitious curriculum for all learners. Through a united approach and high expectations, all classes promote a culture of: high challenge, low threat.

Impact

Every pupil knows love and show loves.

Every pupil is brave and ready to answer ‘Yes’ to God’s calling.

Every pupil acquires knowledge and skills preparing for their next phase in education.

Every pupil, regardless of background or barrier to learning reaches their full potential.

To find out more information about our curriculum, please follow the link below to the National Curriculum

The National Curriculum

EYFS

“The ladder of education can never be secure unless that first rung is firmly in place”.

At St Gerard’s RC Primary School, we strive to inspire, engage and nurture each unique child so they grow to become resilient, confident, curious and self-assured individuals.

We endeavour to work seamlessly together to ensure every child reaches their full potential in a warm and caring emotional, indoor and outdoor learning environment. This reflects our goal for every child to grow as competent, independent learners.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS) sets out the learning and development stages for children as they grow from birth to five years. For those working in the early years -whether in a nursery, pre-school, a childminder or in a reception class in school – the EYFS outlines what they need to do to support your child.

The EYFS is all about developing key skills. There are 7 areas of learning which are as follows: