School Office

08:30 - 16:30

Monday to Friday

Curriculum

Curriculum

Our vision for St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School is to share God’s Love, learn and achieve together and celebrate our uniqueness. This informs all that we do in school.

We are committed to providing a broad and balanced education in which each individual is able to achieve his or her full potential in a safe, caring environment. The school follows Development Matters in the Foundation stage and the National Curriculum at Key Stage one and two. There is a strong emphasis on a creative curriculum where the different subject areas are linked cohesively and meaningfully to make learning enjoyable and rewarding. We seek to enhance children’s learning through trips, visiting speakers, outdoor learning and interaction with the local and global community. We view these elements as an essential part of a child’s education.

Please see the curriculum maps to see what your child will be learning over the school terms.

Religious Education

As a Catholic School, RE plays a central role in our curriculum. Currently our curriculum is based on materials produced with support from the Diocese. During the course of 2023/24 we will be trialling learning planned using the new RE curriculum directory (RED) this will result in slightly different topics being taught in Reception and year 3.   

English – Intent

At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, we intend for all pupils to experience an inspiring, language-rich and motivational English environment. We aim to foster a love of books and reading, alongside a positive culture of writing, for a variety of purposes and audiences and across all subjects within our broad curriculum.

Our youngest children will begin their early reading and writing development supported by excellent synthetic phonics teaching using ‘Unlocking Letters and Sounds’, giving them the foundational skills needed to confidently segment, decode and build words. During their time at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, all pupils will be given the opportunity to immerse themselves in a wide variety of texts from a range of different cultures. Through shared texts and explicit teaching, they will experience a wide range of vocabulary, giving them the understanding and power of language that they need to flourish.

Our intent is for every child to leave our care as able and independent communicators, with the confidence and skills required to read and write fluently. They will be thoroughly prepared in all aspects of English and fully equipped for the next step in their educational journey. 

English – Implementation

Our English curriculum at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School is delivered with the support of the ‘Unlocking Letters and Sounds’ phonics scheme, our guided reading lessons, and The Literacy Tree. These schemes support teachers to deliver well-structured and exciting learning opportunities that enable our children to learn, revisit and progressively develop their skills in English at an age-appropriate level.

Our curriculum is topic-based and includes science, history, geography, art and design and music. Through the topics, we develop ICT skills using a range of resources. The emphasis is on development of skills and understanding, with inbuilt opportunities for children to make choices about what they are learning and how they learn. We aim to foster within the children a sense of curiosity, creativity and an awareness and understanding of their history and environment.

We have designated weeks in school where certain areas are given a priority and the children have opportunities to explore different subjects in more depth.

These weeks are very much valued by children, staff and parents. A well-established forest school in the grounds enables children to explore the individual subject areas in an outdoor environment.

Physical education is taught in school through a range of activities, including dance, gymnastics, athletics and games. We have a heated outdoor pool and the children all have swimming lessons; in addition, key stage two children have swimming lessons at a local leisure centre. The children are encouraged to develop the skills of fair play and teamwork. We arrange competitive events with other schools in the area.

At St Joseph’s we offer a range of school clubs which cater for a wide variety of abilities and interests. These include sports, drama, art and music.

We also have football and netball teams which practice and have matches after school. We aim to give children the chance to explore new skills and discover new talents.

Reading

Our reading scheme in EYFS and KS1 ensures that the books children are reading at home match with their phonic ability and reading level. Teachers also deliver daily guided reading sessions using banded books to meet the needs of groups of learners and to practise essential comprehension skills, as well as building confidence and fluency. This also provides ongoing assessment and learning opportunities for teachers to regularly check pupil progress and adapt the teaching of reading as necessary. Children take home a reading for pleasure book to share with their family or to read themselves.

Writing 

At St Joseph’s we believe in providing a ‘hook’ to engage children with a love for reading and writing. We carefully plan our learning to ensure children have access to all the skills required for their year group. We also follow carefully planned sequences of learning from The Literacy Tree which engages children and develops required skills. The Literacy Tree also encourages writing for pleasure and improves comprehension. Children can apply their knowledge and understanding to prior learning and extend upon it. Children are engaged with their writing and develop comprehension through relevant books. As part of phonics, children in EYFS and KS1 also begin to learn correct letter formation. In year 2 they begin to learn the lead ins which help them to form a fluent and correctly joined handwriting style. Teachers in these year groups are regularly given CPD opportunities to update and refresh their phonics teaching in line with the school approach.

When children join St Joseph’s School aged four, they follow a curriculum called Development Matters, where there is a strong emphasis on how we learn as well as what we learn. The characteristics of how we learn are playing and exploring, active learning and creativity and critical thinking. The seven key areas of learning and development are divided into prime and specific areas. The prime areas are personal, social and emotional education, physical development and communication and language. The specific areas are literacy, maths, understanding the world and expressive arts and design. It is a play based curriculum with a balance between child initiated and teacher-led learning. There is an emphasis on building self-esteem and encouraging children to become collaborative and motivated learners.

Mathematics at St Joseph’s School encourages every child to use and apply skills in a practical way, through investigation and problem-solving.

 

Mental skills and the ability to think clearly and logically are encouraged within the maths curriculum. We develop specific mathematical vocabulary and expect children to learn number facts and time tables, which gives them the skills to approach mathematics with confidence and enjoyment.

Much of our work is of a practical nature using concrete experiences, making maths meaningful. The framework is progressive and enables children to build on their skills as well as reinforcing and revisiting concepts.

Through everything we do at school, the children are encouraged to consider their relationships and responsibilities towards themselves and others.

 

We follow the ‘In the Beginning’ scheme, which has been approved by the Catholic bishops. We involve parents and carers in educating the children in personal relationships. We teach sex and relationships education and personal, social and health education within a framework which upholds our values as members of a Christian community and lays the foundations of our Catholic Faith.

Spanish or French are taught from year 2 to year 6. The programme introduces the children in how to converse in a foreign language alongside the literacy and culture of the language. We aim to instil both the confidence to ‘have a go’ at speaking French or Spanish and an enthusiasm for finding out about other languages and cultures.

Phonics

The teaching of phonics supports children in EYFS and year 1 to develop their phonic knowledge. We use a synthetic approach which guides them step by step, from learning initial sounds to reading and writing sentences with confidence and fluency.