St Mary’s Fields Primary School Curriculum Intent

Curriculum rationale – a blend of knowledge, skills and character education

The staff, parents and Governors at St Mary’s Fields Primary School have developed a progressive curriculum based on the shared understanding of what we want our children take with them into their future lives. We deliver a curriculum that is relevant for our cohort of children in the fact that it is designed to develop the whole child and prepare them for their future journey. Its design unlocks their potential, allows them to explore and discover, and gives them knowledge.  Children will be motivated to want to know more and be able to do more. We aim to produce life-long learners through a curriculum based on a blend of skills, knowledge and character education.

Knowledge

We deliver a curriculum that

• Supports the acquisition of new language through the explicit teaching of vocabulary throughout the whole curriculum
• Ensures the children have the opportunity to make links within subjects, across subjects and  to prior learning
• Exposes children to a broad range of memorable experiences beyond the classroom, inspiring our pupils to build a wider cultural capital and support their learning of new vocabulary
• Provides the opportunity for children to learn more about their own culture and that of others, through sharing and celebrating similarities and differences between us all –
• Encourages children to know and understand the importance of and have the means to lead a healthy lifestyle that has physical and mental health at the heart of it Skills

We deliver a curriculum that

• Teaches children to not only have a voice, but to use it in order to enquire, challenge and communicate their ideas and opinions to problem solve and be creative
• Places the importance of reading at the heart of children’s learning
• Supports children to develop skills of enquiry, creativity, problem-solving and evaluation – EYFS enquiry based learning
• Develops children’s subject specific skills in each area of the broader curriculum
• Requires children to develop skills to work collaboratively and independently in order to achieve better outcomes.

Character Education

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We deliver a curriculum that

• Promotes the development of the child’s key characteristics that the school feels are essential for learning and living
• Empowers our children to become independent and resilient in their learning and beyond
• Develops a thirst for knowledge and leaves the children wanting more
• Enables children to be reflective in order to recognise their own, and others, strengths and characteristics to develop
• Motivates children to have high aspirations for their futures in learning, work and in wider life.

Homework

Homework is given out weekly and is usually work sheet based. Children that complete their homework will be receive praise and be rewarded with class rewards. 

Children are not punished if they fail to complete the work. However discreet homework registers are kept and if a child’s progress stalls this will be discussed with the child and their parents.

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We accept that not every activity will capture children and parents’ imagination and that weekends can sometimes be busy & valuable family time. We believe that homework should be enjoyable and manageable for all concerned and that if it becomes a chore/burden/source of conflict it ceases to be a constructive aspect of teaching and learning.

We hope the children are motivated by positive incentives and by the tasks themselves.

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Year groups should have the following tasks to do at home throughout the week: reading book, spellings, times tables, English homework, Maths homework, Family Project. In KS1 Maths may be given one week and English the next.

-          For the first half of the focus of the English homework will be the writing non-negotiable for your child’s year group and for the preceding year groups

-          For the first half of the Autumn term the focus of your child’s maths homework should be key skills.

Homework is differentiated where required.

Family Project

The school encourages all families to take part in the ‘Family project’, which will be set each half term. This will be an enquiry-based question to answer in any way that the family likes . It may link to History/Geography, Science, RE or something in English. Families that choose to take part in the project are asked to submit in the penultimate week before half term. These dates are on the website calendar. A £5 book token will be awarded to a winning family in each phase. Projects will be displayed during school ‘Book Looks’.

Writing ‘non-negotiables’ for all curriculum areas

The writing non-negotiables up to and including your year group should be on display in the classroom. Whatever the Learning Objective is, these things should be pick-up on and corrected in marking. The aim is that the majority of children are fully proficient in this area by the end of that year