Curriculum

What does your child learn at school each day? Find information about our curriculum subjects here.

Our Curriculum

Our school curriculum aims to help each child to realise his/her maximum potential in a safe and happy environment.

Our mission statement and the religious teaching of the school informs planning and delivery of all subjects. We have high expectations for every child.  We expect our children to be involved in setting their own targets and to work hard to discover their best ways of learning.

At St Michael and St John’s we engage children in learning by teaching National Curriculum subjects as subjects.  Each year group has a ‘Curriculum Grid’ for each half term which sets out what children will be learning in each subject (See below).

We follow the statutory National Curriculum and build the objectives from this curriculum into units of work for each year group. We use a range of resources when planning our curriculum and tailor these resources to meet the needs of our children. Everything we do is underpinned by our unique curriculum ‘driver’ which was created by all staff and following pupil discussion.  Early Years children (Reception class) follow the EYFS Early Adopter Framework.

Our Curriculum ‘Driver’

With faith at the heart of our curriculum at St. Michael & St. John’s, we will appreciate, understand and utilise the diverse culture, history and geography of our unique environment.  We will prepare our children through memorable experiences for their role, in an ever changing society.

As we continue to develop the curriculum, ‘Pupil Voice’ will be fundamental to our developments as we review with children and staff the topics they have enjoyed learning through and what/how they would like to learn in the future.

We send home half termly class newsletters to keep parents fully informed about their children’s learning and to advise them how they can help their children. Working in partnership with parents is a priority in school. 

Curriculum Support

St Michael and St John’s RC Primary School prides itself in being very inclusive and will endeavour to support every child regardless of their level of need.  All pupils follow the National Curriculum at a level and a pace that is appropriate to their abilities. At times, when it is felt appropriate, modifications to the curriculum will be implemented in line with The Children’s and Families Act 2014 and the Equality Act 2010.

To successfully match pupils’ ability to the curriculum there are some actions we take to achieve this:

• Ensure that all pupils have access to the school curriculum and all school activities.
• Help all pupils achieve to the best of their abilities, despite any difficulty or disability they may have.
• Ensure that teaching staff are aware of and sensitive to the needs of all pupils, teaching pupils in a way that is appropriate to their needs.
• Strive to develop confidence and improve learners’ self-esteem.
• Work in partnership with parents/ carers, pupils and relevant external agencies in order to provide for children’s special educational needs and disabilities.
• Identify at the earliest opportunity, all children that need special consideration to support their needs (whether these are educational, social, physical or emotional)
• Make suitable provision for children with SEND to fully develop their abilities, interests and aptitudes and gain maximum access to the curriculum.
• Ensure that all children with SEND are fully included in all activities of the school in order to promote the highest levels of achievement.
• Promote self-worth and enthusiasm by encouraging independence at all age and ability levels.
• Give every child the entitlement to a sense of achievement.
• Regularly review our policy and practice in order to achieve best practice.

At St Michael and St John’s Primary, we believe in participation and progress for all. We aim to create an inclusive culture in our school and value high quality teaching for all learners.

We understand that children learn and develop in different ways. Teachers and teaching assistants recognise this and use different teaching styles, resources and adapt work in the classroom to cater for the various ways children learn. The majority of children in our school will receive support through good quality teaching in the classroom (Quality First Teaching).

However we are mindful that some children, at some time in their school life, may need extra help and support in a variety of different ways. If staff feel that a child’s needs cannot be met through quality first teaching alone, then additional support or intervention may be put into place to compliment the curriculum and enhance access. This is monitored regularly and adjusted as necessary.

Each learner identified as having SEN is entitled to support that is ‘additional to or different from’ a normal differentiated curriculum. The type of support is dependent on the individual learning needs and is intended to enable access to learning and overcome the barrier to learning identified.

The waves of intervention model describes how different levels of intervention can be used to facilitate learning.

 Wave 1 Quality First Teaching

This is about what should be on offer for all children: the effective inclusion of all pupils in high-quality everyday personalised teaching. This could include:

• Differentiated and adapted work to meet pupils’ needs
• High expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils
• Good subject and curriculum knowledge
• Well-structured lessons
• Adapting teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils
• Behaviour managed effectively to ensure a positive and safe learning environment which promotes progress
• Deploying support staff effectively.

Wave 2 Interventions

Where children need additional support they may be given some Wave 2 intervention to help them ‘Catch Up’ with their peers or prevent a gap from appearing or increasing. Wave 2 interventions are often targeted at a group of pupils with similar needs. These are monitored for each class using the class provision map as well as individually for children with SEND using the Pupil Overview of Provision (POP) each term.

Wave 2 interventions may include:

• Handwriting interventions as a small group
• Phonics catch up groups
• Social skills or nurture groups
• Motor skills groups
• Speech & Language groups
• Maths intervention eg pre-learning activities surrounding vocabulary or strategies to apply in lessons
• Reading comprehension small group interventions
• Targeted spelling interventions in a small group
• Stretching a sentence work or sentence structure targeted small group support

Wave 3 interventions

If pupils continue to make inadequate progress, despite high-quality teaching targeted at their areas of weakness, the class teacher, with support from the SENCO , should assess whether a pupil has a significant learning difficulty, which may require highly- tailored interventions. This may include specialist or individualised provision.

Curriculum Leaders

If you have any questions about a particular subject, please speak to the ‘Subject Leader’ for that subject:

Please click each of the buttons below to access the corresponding curriculum plan.