In Jesus We Learn, Love and Grow together
Be the Good Soil Mark 4:1-20

St Peter's Curriculum Intent

ST PETER’S CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY SCHOOL VISION

‘In Jesus, we learn, live and grow together’

Be The Good Soil (Mark 4: 1-20)

BE THE GOOD SOIL wide.jpg

Through our Christian Faith, we acknowledge our responsibility to all, to enrich lives and show love and respect within our school family by inspiring all our children with the knowledge and imagination to develop their God-given potential and lead fulfilling lives. We believe in lifelong learning aiming to equip our children to live life today and for tomorrow rooted in Christian love who nurture wisdom, care for themselves and others and make a difference to their communities.

At St Peter’s we all strive to be ‘The Good Soil’ that Jesus spoke about in the parable of ‘The Sower’ Mark 4:1-20. Through the Christian values that Jesus taught us ‘We learn, love and grow together’ as a community, bearing witness to and sharing the word of God.

Our Curriculum Intent

At St Peter’s Church of England Primary School, our curriculum has been designed to ensure each and every child can ' live life in all its fullness' by offering stimulating and awe-inspiring learning experiences with Christian values at its heart.

It is bespoke to the needs of the pupils we serve, not only by focusing on appropriate subject specific knowledge, skills and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum, but by modelling the virtues given to us by Christ and by developing individual and collaborative learning experiences, a positive resurrection mind set, a sense of responsibility and challenges that take them beyond the classroom and provide the children with plenty of opportunities to develop a rich vocabulary.

We aim for all learners to enjoy their education and most make very good progress in all areas of learning. Pupils at all levels are helped to achieve their potential. Those who are most able are challenged and supported through appropriate extension activities. Those who struggle are encouraged and given targeted support to embed skills, to develop at their own pace or simply to learn in a style that best suits their individual needs.

At St Peter’s our curriculum is constantly evolving, responding to the needs of learners and their interests by enhancing learning experiences and raising awareness from the local area to national and global arenas. Thus, we develop outward looking pupils who are able to engage in learning about themselves and global neighbours and have an understanding of the wider world and its complex cultures.

Our curriculum intends to:

Develop our head and body: What we learn

  • Provide high quality and varied learning, which provides opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve, both indoors and outdoors.
  • Provide children with a sequential progression of skills and knowledge, which enables them to build on previous learning and thus securing firm foundations for future learning.
  • Develop the appropriate subject specific knowledge, skills and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum Framework 2014 and beyond, so that children can flourish, reach and exceed their potential academically, physically and artistically in line with national expectations.
  • Develop a comprehensive vocabulary understanding its meaning, using it correctly, in the right context.
  • Develop core transferable knowledge and skills.

Develop our hearts and character: Who we are

  • Develop learners to have a holistic set of values that prepares them for life in the modern world in a diverse and ever changing community and work place.
  • Develop individuals with lively, enquiring minds, good thinking skills, and self-respect, self-discipline and positive attitudes.

Develop our actions and attitudes: How we live and learn

  • Develop the behaviours learners need to succeed in the world such as concentration, perseverance, imagination, co-operation, the enjoyment of learning, self-improvement and curiosity.
  • Develop enduring values of hope, endurance, friendship, humility, wisdom and compassion.

Develop our moral compass: Where we fit in the world.

  • Foster in the children the attitudes and qualities which enable them to understand spirituality in themselves and others, develop social skills and understand society; build strong personal morality, and to engage confidently in the community they live in and understand and respect the cultures of others to prepare the pupils for life in our British Society in becoming caring, responsible citizens.
  • Provide learning experiences that ensure when our students leave us they fulfil our Christian mission and have the courage, resilience and determination to transform the world.

Curriculum Implementation

At St Peter’s Church of England Primary School, we aim to provide the children with a curriculum which is broad, well balanced and above all stimulates the children to learn.

Through quality teaching of knowledge, skills and vocabulary across core and foundation subjects, all children will be challenged to be inquisitive, compassionate, courageous and creative learners. They will have opportunities to influence their own learning through age appropriate and progressive themes and topics. Effective learning characteristics including being ambitious, reflective and imaginative will drive teaching and learning. Through a positive and caring environment, we provide the opportunity for every child to reach their full potential. We embrace our Christian values and ensure all children are ready for their next steps.

Our teaching of content and knowledge is based on the EYFS Curriculum and National Curriculum for KS1 (Years 1 and 2) and KS2 (Years 3 - 6) in the core curriculum subjects of English, Maths, Science; foundation subjects of History, Geography, Art, Design and Technology, Music, Physical Education, Computing, French and Religious Education.

Personal Social Health and Sex Education (PSHE/RSE) follows DFE guidance for schools. We focus on personal, interpersonal and social effectiveness and managing risk and decision making. We aim to equip pupils to live healthy, safe, productive, capable, responsible and balanced lives. 

As a Church of England School, our curriculum is distinctive in promoting Christian values and the teachings of the Christian Church. Studies are supported by first hand experiences such as visiting our local churches and visits to other places of worship to widen pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the wider world. The teaching of Religious Education is statutory in all schools. Religious Education is taught following the Questful RE and Understanding Christianity schemes by Manchester Diocese and supplemented with the Rochdale Agreed Syllabus of Religious Education.

We recognise the importance of English and Maths teaching as a gateway to other areas of the curriculum and therefore a large emphasis is placed on these areas. We aim to expand children’s limited vocabulary by ensuring key vocabulary for every topic is identified and taught across the school. Planning is clearly focused to provide an engaging and inspiring curriculum through the use of Knowledge Mats, Key Vocabulary, Brain Buster Challenges etc.

Learning is planned through whole school overarching themes which provide cohesiveness and promote British Values. Opportunities for personalised learning are now embedded, providing support for individual children where needed.

We value the role of modern foreign languages in the curriculum and French is taught from Year 3 to Year 6.

At St Peter’s Church of England Primary School, we seek to create opportunities for children to experience and excel in a range of activities that enhance and extend the National Curriculum. Children have opportunities both inside and outside the classroom, for example: Residential trips, a variety of sporting events, visitors to school, school trips. We use our local area to drive hands on learning and allow the children to make connections between local history and national history. We also have excellent after school clubs and think of innovative ways in giving the children life experiences they may not get outside of school.

Here at St Peter’s, we believe all children should foster a love of God’s world by experiencing many outdoor learning opportunities, both within the school grounds and beyond. We also strive to allow the children to experience a wide variety of life experiences, as well as basic experiences, that they may not have been fortunate enough to have undertaken.

Reading and Phonics

Reading is a priority across the whole school and English topics are centred on high quality texts. Cross curricular planning opportunities are made available when relevant.

We believe that in order for children to engage with ‘reading for pleasure’, they need to become confident readers in the first instance, gaining satisfaction for decoding words. We enable our children to do this through a systematic synthetic phonics programme. Children in EYFS and KS1 are taught phonics in a daily session. Our phonics lesson planning and delivery follows the ‘Bug Club’ phonics programme, alongside our own planning documentation and resources, which are led by a multi-sensory approach. Bug Club phonics introduce phonemes and graphemes systematically, thus enabling pupils to practise and build upon the phonics taught in class.

The Bug Club phonics scheme, alongside our own planning and delivery structure meets the most recent core criteria (April 2021), provided by the DFE, which states that the scheme should be centred around, ‘a complete SSP programme providing fidelity to its teaching framework’, and ‘present systematic, synthetic phonics work as the prime approach to decoding print’. Bug Club phonics introduces phonemes and graphemes systematically, thus enabling pupils to practise and build upon the phonics taught in class.

At St Peter’s we have devised our own bespoke English curriculum which is centred around quality texts. Through our carefully planned unit structure, which alongside high quality texts, is based around the ‘Talk for Writing Approach’. The children are exposed to the teaching of explicit reading strategies and activities throughout the unit. This approach allows the time for teachers and pupils to become engrossed in the texts as ‘readers’, before becoming a writer.

We also value the importance of the discrete teaching of reading, outside our English units and therefore have a whole school guided reading approach, which is led by the Bug Club Guided Reading scheme and follows a carousel format. The format of our Guided Reading lessons can be seen in detail in our Reading Policy.

In addition to our Guided Reading carousel, we have a whole class reading approach from EYFS-Year 6, which allows for the teaching of word reading, fluency and discrete comprehension skills. This is delivered through the ‘Cracking Comprehension’ scheme, and be seen in more detail through or Reading Policy. 

To ensure consolidation of reading skills, all our children take home a reading book from our reading scheme. In EYFS and KS1, these are fully decodable matching to the child’s phonics attainment, and as the children enter KS2 they work towards becoming a ‘free reader’. We have rigorous systems in place to ensure that all children are reading with an adult either at home or in school at least twice a week.

Vocabulary - We believe that the acquisition of language and communication skills should hold the utmost importance as the vast majority of our pupils have English as an additional language, and so the teaching of all aspects of English is given high priority, particularly the teaching of new and ambitious vocabulary. The focus on vocabulary begins as soon as the children enter our EYFS setting, where they are provided with a language rich environment, alongside a curriculum that is centred about communication and language. We continue to provide opportunities for the children to develop their vocabulary in English lessons and across the curriculum throughout their time at our school. Such examples of the explicit teaching of vocabulary can be seen through our ‘Word of the Week’ approach, our subject specific knowledge mats and our working walls which display the most recent topic vocabulary.

Assessment

Each year allows children to build on the progress made in the previous year. We assess progress and attainment each term and have termly pupil progress meetings. These meetings allow teachers to meet with school leaders and the SENCO to discuss each child and plan intervention programmes for the children (including the more-able) who need extra support or challenge.

We regularly report to parents about how well their children are doing at parent’s evenings, review meetings and in their annual report. Our assessment process focuses on next steps in learning for individual children to fit the year group expectations. This allows teachers to ensure that all children are challenged effectively and their progress is closely monitored.

 

Our Curriculum Impact

Our aim is for all children to achieve well by developing knowledge and skills as they progress through the school, reflected in the results that are achieved at the end of Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

The children leave the school in Year 6 well prepared in order to move on to secondary school successfully. They are academically, physically and spiritually developed with an established love of learning.

Children are guided by a strong moral compass, showing an understanding of the importance of being safe, ready and respectful.

  • The impact of the curriculum is evaluated through:
  • Internal and external statutory assessments
  • Working alongside Rochdale Council
  • Rigorous monitoring of teaching and learning
  • Parent and pupil voice

To summarise, our children will have a confident set of skills, knowledge, and Christian values which can be used to get ahead in education and life more generally. They will learn more, remember more, enjoy more and develop more spiritually, socially and emotionally. Thus enabling them to be ready for their next stage in education.

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Who we are

We look to provide a safe, secure, stimulating Christian environment in which all our children feel happy and valued as individuals, and where they can learn and play to the best of their abilities, and therefore reach their full potential.

Where we are

St Peter's Church of England Primary School
Muriel Street,
Rochdale,
OL16 5JQ

Let's Connect

Mr A Whelan | Headteacher 01706 648195
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