Curriculum

Curriculum Overview

St Charles Catholic Primary School: Curriculum Statement

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary our Catholic ethos is at the heart of everything we do, with Christ at our centre our curriculum is rooted in the Gospel values. Our school vision and values are central to our ethos and we place a focus on developing children’s moral, spiritual, social and cultural understanding recognising that everyone has the right to be treated with respect and dignity.

St Charles’ promotes a highly inclusive environment where learners enjoy their education and each child is recognised individually as being made in the image and likeness of God. We challenge learners at all levels so that the most able pupils expand their skills and knowledge and apply this to different contexts, and those who find learning more difficult are given targeted support to ensure they develop fundamental skills based on their own individual needs. The school curriculum reflects the requirements to provide a broad and balanced curriculum as per the Academies Act 2010, and the National Curriculum programmes of study which is the basis for our curriculum. It also reflects requirements for inclusion and equality as set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice 2014 and Equality Act 2010, and refers to curriculum-related expectations of governing boards set out in the Department for Education’s Governance Handbook.

Further information on how we achieve this can be found in our statement of equality information and objectives, and in our SEND policy and information report.

Curriculum plans:

We pride ourselves on offering a broad and balanced curriculum where each subject is carefully mapped our to ensure learning is sequential within the year and over time. This means children are able to gradually build on their knowledge and skills in each subject. Our History and Geography topics are linked to whole class reading where appropriate to give them meaning, purpose and enjoyment. Our long term plans are based over a 3 or 4 year cycle due to our mixed class organisation.

Knowing more and remembering more is a key part of our curriculum. We used knowledge organisers and a variety of strategies to help children remember key facts and information linked to their topic. This helps children to have deeper understanding of concepts and vocabulary which they can then in turn apply to their learning.

Blocked Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed carefully to ensure National Curriculum coverage and progression of key skills. History, Geography, Art and Design Technology are taught in blocks across the academic year. We encourage children to make links between subjects, to make learning enjoyable make tasks purposeful. This helps to fosters deeper engagement and purpose for writing and art / design and technology tasks, giving children specific knowledge in these areas. We ensure children have access to a wide range of high quality texts which support our themes and encourage love of reading.
To further support knowledge acquisition we use knowledge organisers with key information, facts and dates to help children remember and recall information linked to the topic. These are revisited frequently through a variety of different tasks and activities.

We provide a wide range of enrichment activities to support our curriculum, including trips visitors and local area studies to enhance the experience of the students in our care.