Curriculum Intent Statement
First and foremost, the individual pupil is at the heart of everything we do.
At St Anne’s we aim to lead our children to be like Jesus…wise, caring, honest and fair, today and every day.
We also ensure that our curriculum takes full account of the locality, the United Kingdom and also the wider world.
We are very aware of all our children’s starting points and take full account of their strengths as well as potential barriers to learning. We ensure that we provide them with additional enrichment opportunities throughout their time with us. This includes significantly increasing their vocabulary, improving their spoken English and providing a rigorous and systematic approach to reading development. We also ensure that our children are presented with high quality, first-hand opportunities and life experiences aimed at improving their local and general knowledge so as to enhance their future learning and employment chances.
We ensure that our curriculum is unique and coherent by recognising the strands of learning that run through each subject, e.g., plants in science and locational knowledge in geography. In this way, all teachers are fully aware of the sticky knowledge that children need to take with them at the end of each year. Their new learning builds on previous knowledge and understanding, which in turn leads to more confident life-long learners who will take this knowledge with them into the future.
We are highly ambitious for our children, irrespective of their background or academic prowess. All staff know what their children should achieve at the end of each year and the learning is carefully planned to meet these points. Our children with special educational needs and disabilities are also provided with a rich and relevant curriculum which, where possible, matches that of their peers.
The curriculum is not narrowed as children get older. All children, throughout the school, receive a broad and balanced curriculum which is aimed at improving their knowledge and skills in a progressive manner. In Year 6, we ensure that our children are ready for the end of key stage assessments without distracting them from receiving a very rich, broad and balanced curriculum.
Curriculum Implementation
Reading, writing and mathematics are naturally prioritised and all pupils have a balanced diet of key learning skills in these areas. We take full account of the latest research available to us to support all learning in these areas and in all other subjects.
We now deliver science, history and geography in a blocked system, which sees each subject being given a number of hours to focus on different units within a three-week period. Please see the diagram which gives a typical overview of how this is delivered over a term.
Working in this way allows us to engage our children in a more meaningful way. We also build in retrieval lessons to help support children’s long-term memory.
Over the year children will experience a number of weekly units of science; 3, three-weekly units of history and also 3, three-weekly units of geography. When appropriate the history and geography units will be followed by a week dedicated to art or design technology with the theme being linked to the history or geography covered in the previous three weeks.
Below is an overview of our intended coverage for 2020/ 2021
