St Teresa's Catholic Primary School

"LET US DO LITTLE THINGS WELL TODAY"
Our vision is to ensure children grow and develop through the love and teaching of Christ,
becoming responsible citizens able to make a positive contribution in society.

Clairmont Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 9BE

01206508445

office@st-teresas.essex.sch.uk

Our Curriculum Intention:

 ‘Igniting young minds with an evolving, engaging and enriching curriculum.’

Using the 3 es from our curriculum intention, the rigour we apply to our foundation curriculum matches that of our core curriculum.  We want our curriculum to be a vibrant, enquiry led, challenging, broad, exciting and creative curriculum which engages, inspires and challenges pupils, equipping them with knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create.

 

How will we implement this?

Our curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum 2014 and includes other planned experiences and opportunities which best meet the learning and developmental needs of the children in our school.

The National Curriculum is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum

Our curriculum uses a mixture of knowledge and skills based learning to allow children to build on what they have learnt and apply this to new situations.  This approach is constantly reviewed and we revisit how well children have learnt new knowledge and skills, how well they have retained this information, and how this can be adapted for our planning.  Each class teacher has the autonomy to plan a theme based curriculum, guided by year group overviews and ideas to engage, enrich and ignite each child’s curiosity and interests. It also enables knowledge and skills to be acquired sequentially and in depth or recovered if necessary. The curriculum provides children with memorable experiences, in addition to diverse and rich opportunities from which they can learn and develop a range of transferable skills and make relevant links and connections in their learning.  The planned curriculums develop both knowledge and skill.

Enjoyment of the curriculum promotes achievement, confidence and positive attitudes in an environment where children feel safe to take risks. High quality visits and visitors to the school enhance the curriculum. Our children have the opportunity to share their learning with each other, their parents through Come and See assemblies and online through our school website.

 

English and mathematics:

The school uses a number of resources and available schemes to plan learning in English and Maths.  These are used to set and deliver learning that best suits each class and individual pupils.

How do we assess the impact of this?

The children of St Teresa's achieve well when they move on to their Secondary School Education. We measure attainment and progress of all subjects through Target Tracker. Each teacher uses this information to identify gaps in curriculum learning and teaches to close these gaps for the pupils in their class. Each Subject Leader uses this attainment and progress information to inform their action plan. 

 

British Values

From September 2014, schools within England have had a duty to promote British Values.  The Department for Education (DfE) define them as:

  • Democracy
  • The rule of law
  • Individual liberty
  • Mutual respect
  • Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs

The British values are embedded throughout our curriculum, on whole school British Value themed days and when coming together as a whole school in our school assemblies. 

 

 

At the start of each academic year parents are invited to an information meeting with their child's class teacher who will provide full details of the curriculum and class routines for the year.

Recovery Curriculum

Intention:

From March the 8th 2021, The DFE released further guidance on what we should be providing for our pupils and how we should provide it.

You can find the link to the document here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak 

At St Teresa's, the teaching staff have established our recovery model, using the 3 a's: Acclimatize, Assess and Accelerate. 

Acclimatize means getting the pupils back into the classroom feeling happy, safe and secure. We focus on mental health and wellbeing for all children. For some classes, this will take time. For others, they may be ready to progress quicker. 

Assess: we are not assessing using tests and this is not in line with our ethos. We will be using carefully structured activities and carefully posed questions to assess what our children can and cannot do. From this, we will make a judgment on Target Tracker to see gaps in learning. Leaders will use this information to identify outcomes and trends across the school. 

Accelerate: we will use these identified gaps in learning to tailor our lessons to the children's needs. We evolve our curriculums to ensure the children accelerate their progress in knowledge and skills so no child is left behind. More detail about our implementation of the Recovery curriculum is attached in the document below.