Our Curriculum intent

Our curriculum is underpinned by our core Christian values of Respect, Excellence and Friendship. It is designed to achieve our mission for all learners: Loving Learning, Loving Life, Loving God’s world.

We aim to deliver an ambitious curriculum which ensures that children gain opportunities to strive for excellence in every area of life and learning.  We have carefully planned learning experiences that will promote pupils' spiritual, moral, physical, social and cultural development and prepare all pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and joy that life has in store for them in the 21st Century.

Our curriculum is designed to be clear, coherent and sequential so that it allows children to build on previous learning, gaining  knowledge and skills, year on year, in all National Curriculum subjects. Our aim is for children to know more and remember more, building their long-term memory over time.

We believe that children learn best when they are actively engaged in an exciting and memorable curriculum that is broad, balanced, rich and relevant. Therefore, we try to ensure that learning is meaningful, challenging and enjoyable. We take our children beyond the experiences of the classroom so that they are exposed to rich and varied opportunities. We utilise our unique local context, whilst ensuring our children receive a breadth of learning about the diverse, wider world.

Our aim is to provide children with a safe, yet challenging, environment in which they can take risks and make mistakes in order to develop their resilience and ability to be self-reflective through our growth mindset approach. We place emphasis on nurturing children’s physical and mental well-being.

Community involvement is an integral part of our curriculum, inviting families and visitors into school whenever possible to share in events such as collective worship and curriculum workshops. Children leave St. James’ with a sense of belonging to a tightly knit community where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners.

Implementation

Leaders at all levels have used their passion and subject expertise to carefully design a curriculum which balances national expectations with a rich and varied range of experiences so that all children can flourish. We recognise that a child's curriculum journey begins when children first start school and builds sequentially from Early Years. The curriculum at St. James’ is carefully mapped out to ensure that pupils acquire knowledge, skills and key vocabulary in a well-thought out and progressive manner in every curriculum subject, ensuring sufficient coverage across each subject over time. New learning is based upon what has been taught before and prepares children for what they will learn next.  There are clear end points which children work towards on their learning journey. We know that if our children are engaged in our curriculum, they are making progress and are being prepared for the next stage of their educational journey. Skills and knowledge are taught discretely in subject areas, so that children gain a broad understanding of each subject and know when they are learning about science or history for example.  

Impact

At St. James’ we strive for all children to achieve their maximum potential, by having high expectations. Our staff have a detailed knowledge of each unique individual, striving to ensure that all tasks are well matched to each child’s level of ability and offering depth and challenge. Our pupils achieve very well when compared with National outcomes. We use a wide range of monitoring strategies throughout the year to measure the impact of our children’s progress as they learn through our curriculum. We celebrate our strengths and are relentless in our drive to continually improve. As a result of our ever evolving curriculum, all children are becoming progressively more knowledgeable and skilled in a range of subjects. We know that our children love learning because we can see it in the pride they take in their work and the way they enjoy talking about their learning too. Engagement levels of home learning are high because we have a successful partnership with parents.

The Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development of children is shown through our clear Christian values, which are intrinsically interwoven into daily life in our school community. This enables all pupils to develop academically, spiritually and socially. All stakeholders articulate with pride the inclusiveness and care within our school family through which staff and children are encouraged to thrive and prosper.

Our four E’s

Engage

Children are immediately hooked by learning with opportunities to think creatively, problem solve, follow lines of enquiry.

Enrich

Children have enriched lives through cultural capital. For example, exposure to museums, galleries, plays, concerts, foods, dialects, our local area and the diversity of the wider world. (50 things to do before you leave St. James’)

Empower

Children learn the key skills and essential knowledge and understanding within subject disciplines. They know how to learn and become learners for life. They are resilient and reflective with a can do attitude. We teach them to build personal empowerment by becoming self-aware and reflecting on their own values and goals.

Embed

Learning is a change in the long term memory. Children need background knowledge. We give it meaning. We provide opportunities to revisit key concepts. From novice to expert!

Our Core Curriculum

Early Reading  English

Maths RE

Science   

Our Foundation Subjects

Art Computing DT

French Geography History

MusicOnline SafetyPE

PSHE & RSE

Year group overviews

Each year group has carefully planned how each subject progression of skills and learning journeys are mapped out across the academic year. Below are the overviews for each year group. 

Year RYear 1Year 2

Year 3Year 4Year 5

Year 6

SMSC and British Values

Please click on the links below for details of our spiritual, moral, social and cultural provision in school, as well as how we promote the fundamental British Values.

SMSC British Values