Our Curriculum
A Creative Curriculum
Since September 2014 we have been using the new National Curriculum to plan the work we do with our children, in every subject. Our focus is on making our curriculum as broad and balanced as we can with a strong commitment to making creative links between subjects. For example; a topic on Roman Britain might include mosaic making in art, shield making for DT, diary writing from the perspective of a Roman soldier or poetry writing, describing how it might have felt to march long distances, learning our Roman numerals, a trip to a significant historical Roman site i.e Cirencester or Bath and possibly actually invading another classroom using role play! By the very nature of some subjects such as maths and science, our teaching is more discreet although links are made to the ‘topic’ wherever possible.
During the last academic year (2017/2018) we spent a considerable amount of time as a staff reviewing our curriculum and topic titles. We began with the key skills in each area of the curriculum and used this as the starting point for our new currciulum maps. We then thought about the topics, subject areas and knowledge that would go with these skills. By the summer we had produced ‘Year A’ of our two year topic cycle and during the course of this academic year we will be working on constructing ‘Year B’ of our topic cycle.
Over the last few years we have changed our class structure from year to year to meet the needs of the learners in various cohorts. Last year we had Reception as a single year group, a Year 1 & 2 class, Year 3 & 4 and a Year 5 & 6 class. This year we have returned to having our Reception and Year 1 children together, a year 2 & 3 class, a year 4 & 5 class and Year 6 on their own. Our topic cycle is carefully designed to allow the flexibility needed with these changes.
Also included here is the long term planning that we use to support our work in Literacy. Our numeracy planning comes directly from the National Curriculum; teachers use this to plan termly units of work that build on the skills gained by the children in the previous term. Topics such as Number & Place Value, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as fractions decimals and percentages are included in every planning cycle so that our children develop strong foundations in key mathematical concepts.
At St. Katharine’s school we have a strong focus on the development of mental maths skills right from the beginning, when children enter school. It is our belief that if children can quickly gain the skills needs to compute mentally then this will support learning in all other areas of the maths curriculum.
We use a home /school scheme call ‘Passport Maths’ that fully involves children in their learning. Children have clear targets to reach before gaining their certificate for a continent. We aim for all our children to be ‘Globe Trotters’ when they leave our school with a firm grasp of all times tables and the factors of all numbers to 100, computing with decimals as well as understanding factors, square and prime numbers.
All parents receive a ‘topic web’ every term that details the key areas that their child will be learning about. Your can find these in the ‘parents’ section of our website and this information is repeated in the ‘classes’ section. We actively encourage parental involvement in their child’s learning and they are always welcome to come in and help either on a regular basis or to share a particular expertise in an area as a one off.
We operate an open door policy and are happy to discuss any aspect of your child’s learning with you in addition to the information that is supplied on this website.
