Curriculum Statement-Context
In line with our Christian Vision, which aspires for all children to flourish, senior and subject leaders have worked together to refine our curriculum to ensure that it is even more relevant & engaging, enabling our children to achieve high academic standards, as well as gain the cultural capital they need to experience ‘life in all its fullness’, both now and in the next stage of their education and future lives.
Building on earlier work to de-colonize the curriculum and ensure that we met our equality objectives, we discussed the questions; Who are we as a school? Why are we here? Therefore, how do we live? This enabled us to further explore our changing school context, the needs of our children and cement our high aspirations for their achievement. We believe there should be no ceiling on expectations of our children, and place the same high expectations on ourselves and our development as a school.
We then explored the concept of ‘flourishing’; If all of our children are to flourish, and the curriculum is the vehicle for this, then what should it look like? What opportunities should the curriculum offer and how should it be structured?
Our curriculum was good to begin with but is now even better. The process of refining our curriculum has been a valuable process; subject leaders have further established their own aspirations for their subjects, worked together to ensure it ‘flows’ and we have whole-school buy in to what we are aiming to achieve. The received curriculum i.e. what the children actually experience, is delivered by our diverse staff who have been carefully trained and nurtured as professionals to ensure that teaching and learning is aspirational, adapted and delivered to the best of the school’s ability.
Our Curriculum
We are proud of the curriculum offered at STMP; specifically tailored to engage , challenge and support our diverse inner – city community. We believe that every child matters to God and has the right to the same opportunities as their peers, whatever their perceived barriers to learning and success. We want our children to be inquisitive learners, to develop the personal and practical skills which will enable them to succeed in life, whatever they chose to do; we want them to aim high, look beyond their locality and see the opportunities open to them. We are truly inclusive at STMP. Everyone has a voice and is heard.
Our curriculum aims to lay the foundations for lifelong learning by being enquiry-led, knowledge rich and skills based. Underpinned in it’s entirety by our Vision, it is well-sequenced and progressive to ensure that that all children receive their entitlement to broad and balanced access to the full range of National Curriculum subjects, as a minimum. Equality and Diversity, People and Places, The Whole Child and Protecting our Environment are woven through the units of learning. The curriculum ensures progression, year on year, so that every child moving through the school is taught the same essential bank knowledge and skills, and is given the opportunity to retain and apply this to future learning-in essence, becoming life long learners. Pertinent links are made between subjects to deepen understanding and in addition to first quality teaching, an extensive catch-up and intervention map which is carefully monitored, ensures that children who need additional support receive it.
Our approach to personal development and pastoral care is second to non; through a collective focus on secure relationships, collective worship, assemblies, a broad RE Curriculum and PSHE, plus the TEAM ethos at STMP, our children feel safe and nurtured. We want our children to develop self-belief and confidence, to be compassionate and thoughtful, to understand humanity and their ability to advocate for change. Resilience and endurance don’t always come naturally to some of our children so we have to drive the development of their character; good manners and exemplary learning behaviour and conduct are non negotiable at our school. We are a Trauma Informed Practice school and this strengthens our curriculum response to events in children’s lives. We want our children to understand British Values, equality and protected characteristics, be able to form their own opinions and judgments, disagree & reconcile difference peacefully. and above all, stay safe from negative influences.
Our enrichment offer further elevates our curriculum. We offer a varied range of trips, visits and visitors to our school, through established partnerships and taking full advantage of our central London location. Our children deserve to build cultural capital; to experience the Pantomime, Shakespeare, visit Art galleries, museums and the Zoo, read high-quality literature, visit the beach and overcome their fear of new experiences. We want them to learn to sail, climb, swim, learn an instrument ( in Years 5 and 6 everyone does!) and take part in competitive and inclusive sport. These opportunities are planned into the curriculum and finance is never a barrier. What our community can’t do-we provide by ‘leaning in’.
Please do look at each subject page for further information. You can see the curriculum in action on our class webpages where teachers upload updates and photographs every Friday to show what the children are learning.
To see the Department for Education’s Curriculum documents please click here.
Our Approach to Teaching
Our pedagogical approach is direct instruction, which has a clear, strong evidence base for effective teaching. It takes into account the limits of working memory and the process of moving learning to long term memory and keeping it there. This approach enables teachers to deliver our curriculum successfully so that all pupils make good progress.
The Principles of Direct Instruction are:
Begin lessons with a short review of relevant prior learning (retrieval practice)
Present new material in small steps with pupil practice after each step
Ask a large number of questions to all pupils
Check for understanding from all pupils
The teacher directly models the full process, including showing worked examples
Guide pupil practice under close supervision of the teacher with immediate feedback
Obtain a high success rate
Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks
Give time for lots of further independent practice
Regularly review and revisit previous learning through retrieval practice
