Curriculum

St. Catherine’s C.E. Primary School - Curriculum Statement

Rationale

• The curriculum at St. Catherine’s is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all pupils and gives them the skills, knowledge and understanding to prepare them for their future lives.
• It ensures that academic success, creativity and problem solving, reliability, responsibility and resilience, as well as physical development, well-being and mental health are key elements that support the development of the whole child and promote a positive attitude to learning.

 
Curriculum Statement
  At St Catherine’s we believe that extending the children’s knowledge of the world is critical - it is a key driver of our curriculum planning. This will support them as readers, in life, and will create greater aspirations, as they learn about the world around them. It is important that the curriculum considers the development of the whole child and it does not only concentrate on academic success. All of our children have access to all of the National Curriculum.

We offer a curriculum which is broad and balanced and which builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills of all children, whatever their starting points. The curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum 2014 and other experiences and opportunities which best meet the learning and developmental needs of the pupils in our school. It is delivered using an integrated topic approach, based around our ‘book led curriculum’. We recognise that our curriculum should contribute to essential aspects of children’s personal development such as creativity, independence, judgment, self-reflection, problem solving, reliability, responsibility and resilience as well as physical development, well-being and mental health. The aim of our curriculum is for our pupils to have the requisite skills to be successful, independent and motivated learners in readiness for their next stage of education.

The curriculum is designed to give the children a very wide and varied range of opportunities – extending their knowledge of the world. Many of the curriculum areas, within each year group, are linked to the allocated books. Some subject areas stand alone or can be linked to a text chosen by the teacher specifically for that cohort of children.

The school curriculum at St Catherine's incorporates our Heartsmart PHSE scheme with a keen focus on well-being. We introduced the new Relationships and Health Curriculum from September 2020.  Specialist teachers and instructors support music, Spanish and physical education. Theme weeks, whole school activities and opportunities within and outside of the school day, all enrich and develop the children’s learning. After school clubs and events extend these opportunities further. The children enjoy a wide range of educational visits and two residential visits, while at our school. There is a planned range of trips, to ensure that children experience a very rich range of opportunities e.g. all children learn to play two tuned instruments, all children will go to the coast, all children will go to the theatre, all children will perform in a large external arena.

The outdoor environment and the local community are considered as an opportunity for active learning for all our pupils. The school grounds have been developed so they can enrich different curriculum areas, particularly science. The Forest School provision at the school is for all ages of children.

Year group pages contain curriculum newsletters that we send home to our parents throughout the year. They outline what will be covered in each subject as well as giving details of the trips, experiences and exhibitions planned to help enrich the children’s learning.

Please see the 'Curriculum Entitlements' document on this page, that outlines various experiences that we aim to provide for our children as they progress through the years.

If you have any further questions about your child's curriculum, please do not hesitate to contact your child's class teacher. 

Links to Policies and SEND

To find out how our curriculum approach complies with the Equality Act 2010 and SEND regulation 2014 please follow the below links to polices and SEND.