Curriculum

Our School Vision is underpinned by the Bible Verse John 10:10:
‘That they shall have life, life in all its fullness.’

This vision  has enabled us to plan a curriculum that focuses on the holistic education of each child which is delivered within the context of Christian belief and practice through the experiences it offers to all its pupils. We aspire to challenge everyone to achieve more than they ever thought possible and live their life in all its fullness through an extensive menu of enriched learning opportunities both within the classroom and beyond.

At St John’s, we strive to achieve this vision by following our simple mission statement – educating heart, body, mind and soul –  and providing a rich and varied curriculum for all our children.

Both our vision and our mission statement are central to our Curriculum. Additionally, we take our duty to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of pupils seriously, including the duty to promote British Values. We have a distinctive identity and ethos, where the development of social, spiritual and emotional intelligence is as important as academic achievement.

The intent of our curriculum is to help children strive for excellence in every area of life and learning so that they are able to live life to the full.  We have carefully planned learning experiences that will enable pupils to flourish and be prepared for the opportunities, responsibilities and joys 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. We take our children beyond learning within the classroom so that they are exposed to rich and varied opportunities. 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. We place emphasis on nurturing children’s physical and mental well-being. 

In order to implement our curriculum, we have used the wide range of knowledge from our teaching and subject specialists to carefully design a curriculum which balances national expectations with a rich and varied range of experiences. The curriculum at St. John’s is designed so 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. We know that if our children are engaged in our curriculum, they will make 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 develop cross curricular skills to be applied across subjects.

The impact of our curriculum is not only seen in how well our pupils achieve when compared with national outcomes but also in the way staff strive to match learning tasks to each individuals level of ability whilst still offering depth and challenge. 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 dynamic 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 with home learning are high because we have a strong partnership with parents.

 

The curriculum is supplemented by our extensive co-curriculum which enhances what the school provides for all pupils – please refer to our School Life pages on the tab above for further details.

For further details of the National Primary Curriculum please refer to the following website http://www.education.gov.uk/ and of course for up-to-date curriculum information please refer to the class pages on our website.

You will find the subject specific overviews for each year group on their class pages.

Click the links below to find out more about how subject is taught at our school.