The Intent of our Curriculum
Our Curriculum vision is to have uncompromising aspirations for every individual and to provide a quality of education, which is broad, balanced, relevant and challenging for all – regardless of individual starting points. This is not only to fulfil statutory requirements but to meet the needs and interests of our pupils.
At SS Peter & Paul, we teach all subjects in the National Curriculum. We also ensure that there are a range of well-planned opportunities to support children’s spiritual, moral, social, cultural & vocational development, interwoven throughout the curriculum. We plan opportunities to link curriculum areas with the values and virtues of the Catholic Pupil Profile, principles of Catholic Social Teaching & Modern British Values and we exploit intracurricular links that will support pupils in knowing more and remembering more in a meaningful way. A primary focus of our curriculum is to raise aspirations, engender personal pride in achievement, and provide a purpose and relevance for learning for future life.
We want our pupils to be able to retain knowledge, build on it and gain transferable skills to support their ongoing education. Our curriculum is therefore carefully sequenced to develop specific skills and knowledge interlinked across subjects and built upon progressively through phases from Early Years to upper Key Stage 2. As a team we have created long term plans which ensure progression within a context. Our long term plan is carefully sequenced to ensure that units build upon each other to reinforce and extend previous learning. The curriculum for each subject carefully cross references to what has been learnt before and what will be learnt in the future.
We review the curriculum regularly and constantly assess the impact on outcomes and engagement for all pupils, remodelling where necessary in order to help all pupils achieve.
The Implementation of our Curriculum
Our curriculum is designed using our own definition of learning as it’s foundation.
Subject leaders/specialists, supported by senior leaders, have mapped the intended development of knowledge and skills in their area, in order to ensure that concepts and knowledge are embedded, revisited and built upon in a logical manner. We have developed schemas of work that provide a clear learning journey for all pupils during their time with us. Our pupils are given the opportunity to build on previous knowledge and skill, deliberately reinforcing and revisiting learning to reactivate working memory and help knowledge embed in long term memory.
To ensure subject knowledge is revisited, used & embedded, our pupils experience reactivation in addition to a pre-teach. Reactivation days are planned in order to return to learning in a creative, evaluative way within an equidistant time frame of study. For example, children may apply subject knowledge in history to interview and hot seat significant figures from the past. This approach allows teachers to gain further assessment of learning and identify areas that require additional teaching opportunities or experiences. Our primary focus for reactivation days is to return to knowledge to make the learning effective. We believe that something is only learned when it is transferred to long term memory, this requires repetition.
Impact of our Curriculum
Our curriculum design will lead to excellent progress for all pupils over time, regardless of their starting points. Planned learning will progressively build on prior knowledge and understanding and support children in producing outcomes of the highest quality.
Our pupils will gain a strong web of interconnected knowledge from a range of subjects that can be transferred from one context to another. They will have the ability to retrieve knowledge and make connections between subjects and apply their skills, and their knowledge to solve problems, not being afraid to make mistakes.
The impact will be that our learners will have fully rounded characters with a clear understanding of complex values like equality, trust and integrity and many others. They will have a strong spiritual knowledge and faith based upon our mission statement and Catholic ethos.
If you would like more information regarding our curriculum in school, please contact the school office: sspeterandpaulacademy@wolverhampton.gov.uk
