The Curriculum at St Mary's
Our curriculum framework ensures that all children access a broad, balanced, challenging and progressive knowledge rich curriculum based around the requirements of all subjects of the National Curriculum and all of the prime and specific areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage. The curriculum framework ensures that contextual barriers to learning are overcome, ensuring that all children are able to fulfil their potential, regardless of background or ability. The curriculum framework at St John's is specific to our context and has specific components which achieve this by ensuring that:
- All children have enriched lives through access to high quality life experiences which equip pupils with the cultural capital they need e.g. visiting the theatre; going on a residential; visiting a church; volunteering in the community;
- All children have a love of reading through exposure to high quality texts, stories and rhymes.
- All children are able to articulate and reason about the world around them through a highly developed vocabulary.
- All children are challenged to acquire a broad and balanced range of skills and knowledge through exposure to carefully planned and progressive subject content.
- All children have opportunities to develop socially, morally, spiritually and culturally and demonstrate fundamental British values that are linked to our Gospel values.
The curriculum for each subject begins in the EYFS unit. At the earliest age, children are encouraged to explore and think as Readers, Writers, Mathematicians, Scientists, Artists, Geographers and Historians. Knowledge and vocabulary learnt here will be the children's springboard into the KS1 curriculum and beyond.
For example, children will begin to explore the concept of past and present in the EYFS. Through storytelling and an engagement with characters and settings, they will begin to draw on differences and similarities between the past and now.
Moving on into KS1, this knowledge is built on by developing an understanding of the child’s own history (family, birthdays, holiday, timeline). Finally in KS2 more sophisticated historical concepts such as empire, trade, settlement and legacy are studied through the context of significant historical periods.
This careful curriculum sequencing is evident in subject planning and further information on this can be found by following the links below.