The Curriculum at St Mary's

What the St Mary’s Curriculum is Designed to Do

At St Mary’s we have designed our curriculum to enable all our pupils to progress and succeed throughout each stage of their primary learning journey and to ensure that they have the skills, knowledge and understanding required to successfully continue their education at secondary school and to become life-long learners.

We are committed to providing a curriculum that:

• Is underpinned by our Christian faith and the belief that we have all been created in God’s image and likeness and therefore we are all valuable and worthy of respect.

• Provides children with opportunities to live out our mission to pray, learn, love and enjoy their childhood during the time they spend at school.

• Provides a wide range of opportunities embedded across the curriculum for children to become learners who are: responsible; resilient; creative, independent; collaborative; and reflective. 

• Provides broad and balanced coverage of the National Curriculum and appropriate progression from EYFS to Year Six and beyond.

• Prioritises teaching children to develop a positive sense of self and an understanding of how to keep themselves happy, healthy and safe in both their mental and physical wellbeing and in the relationships they build throughout their lives.

• Adapts to meet the individual needs of all children enabling them to gain an understanding of themselves, their strengths, skills and talents and provides opportunities for them to develop these across the curriculum.

• Is driven by a desire for our children to have a greater knowledge and understanding of the world and an awareness of the possibilities open to them in their future lives and careers.

How the St Mary’s Curriculum is Delivered

​The St Mary’s curriculum delivers teaching and learning that ensures pupils are taught in line with the expectations of the National Curriculum and the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton’s RE syllabus. The delivery of the curriculum is planned to engage and inspire our children and is adapted to meet the needs of each child, depending on their age and stage of development. When strong and meaningful links can be made, we adopt a multidisciplinary approach and link subjects to develop a shared theme. Where valid links cannot be made we teach aspects of the learning within discrete subjects.

Year group curriculum maps define the content of our curriculum and enable the delivery of a coherent, structured curriculum that are strengthened by the use of subject specific progression of skills documents and are supported by the expertise of subject leaders. We use some subject specific learning platforms and schemes to assist us in the delivery of certain aspects of our curriculum. We are committed to planning and delivering learning opportunities that are exciting and engaging through: the provision of high quality resources; the use of the excellent facilities available on site, including up to date technology; the provision of memorable first hand learning experiences, visits and trips; a programme of extra-curricular activities; the sharing of good practice, subject knowledge and staff commitment to regular CPD.

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Staff are committed, first and foremost, to delivering the curriculum through quality first teaching to ensure that all pupils make progress in their learning. Where appropriate, staff are competent in their abilities to adapt the curriculum to meet the needs of individual or small groups of pupils. Regular pupil progress reviews and professional discussions between teaching staff and the Inclusion Team assists in the identification of specific pupils or groups of pupils for whom bespoke interventions and support are necessary to enable them to access the full curriculum.

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For further information about the content of our curriculum in each subject and for each year group, please click on the links below.

How the St Mary’s Curriculum is Monitored

The impact of our curriculum is, first and foremost, measured by each individual’s progress and attainment across the whole curriculum and beyond.

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Our curriculum impact is monitored through:

• Regular formative assessment in lessons

• Summative assessments where appropriate

• Termly pupil progress reviews

• Termly learning reviews

• Weekly celebration of pupils who demonstrate the school’s mission and learning values

• Analysis of attainment and progress in statutory assessments