Our intent is to provide our children with a creative, captivating and challenging curriculum that equips them for today and tomorrow. As Jesus said to Andrew, "Push Out into the Deep" (Luke 5:4), we encourage children to take risks and build their resilience in all aspects of school life.

We aim to do this through our 6 whole school topics that reinforce our key values - Celebrating our Community, Being Brave, Keeping Healthy, Making a Difference, Embracing Diversity and Exploring the World.

Our Intent:

Our intent is to provide our children with a creative, captivating and challenging curriculum that equips them for today and tomorrow. As Jesus said to Andrew, "Push Out into the Deep" (Luke 5:4), we encourage children to take risks and build their resilience in all aspects of school life.

Our 6 whole school topics reinforce our key values - Celebrating our Community, Being Brave, Keeping Healthy, Making a Difference, Embracing Diversity and Exploring the World.

At St Andrew’s C of E Primary and Nursery School, we ensure that our children receive a full and enriched curriculum that is underpinned by the school's Christian Values. As a staff we have given careful consideration to our children and tailored a curriculum to meet their needs, offering additional experiences and activities which complement their current opportunities and statutory rights. 

Ultimately, our curriculum intent is to help us to fulfil our school’s vision of helping all of our children to believe in themselves, push the boundaries of their learning and to reach their full potential, in order that they are well-prepared for the next step in their education and life beyond school.  We inspire our children with whole school topics and interesting, challenging lessons so that they enjoy learning and develop high aspirations for the future.

Across the school, we also use Head, Hands and Heart to support the children in understanding more about what they are learning about. These are used in lots of different lessons/activities.

The 'Head' focusses on the knowledge we want children to have and makes it 'sticky knowledge' so that it becomes stuck in their head rather than simply asking Google for all the answers!

The 'Hands' focus on the skills we want children to apply (obviously using knowledge to support them!) and be able to carry them out with as much independence as possible.

The 'Heart' focusses on our Christian and British Values. Quite simply, these statements are designed to support children in growing up to be the adults of the future that we can all be proud of.

This term's whole school topic is... 'Making a Difference'.

Each term we have a BIG heart that each phase of school works towards as part of our whole school topic.

F1: I know I am special.

F2: I know I am a valuable individual.

KS1: I understand that my actions can have a positive impact on my community.

LKS2: I understand the importance of protecting God’s wonderful world, including its creatures.

UKS2: I understand how our activities can have a positive impact in God's world and its people. 

General Principles:

Our curriculum will give children the opportunity to:

• learn and demonstrate the school's Christian Values of Respect, Forgiveness, Trust, Thankfulness, Courage and Love
• see clear links between different aspects of their learning
• experience the challenge and enjoyment of learning
• develop a rich and deep subject knowledge

Impact:

Children leave St Andrew's as happy, caring and confident individuals who know how to stay safe and who do well in all subjects. They have developed a love of reading, maths and science and have high aspirations for the future.

Phonics and Reading at KS1

At St Andrew's we use Read, Write, Inc. programme to teach phonics. Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can then focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling.  In the  Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, children learn sounds and the letters that represent them, and how to form the letters. Then, they read books written using only the letters they have learnt (and a small number of separately taught ‘tricky words’). This gives children plenty of early success and builds up their reading confidence. Children are taught phonics four days per week in supported groups.

Once the children have finished the Read, Write, Inc. phonics programme, they will usually move on to Accelerated Reader. AR is a computer program that helps teachers manage and monitor children’s independent reading practice and progress.  Children will complete a termly reading assessment which gives them a reading range called a ZPD. They will then visit our library to choose a suitable book closely matched to their reading level to share and enjoy. On completion of a book, children will then take an AR  quiz in school to assess their understanding and comprehension of the book. Passing the quiz is an indication that a child has understood what has been read.

Withdrawal from the RE Curriculum

As a Church of England school, we are committed to the provision of an inclusive Religious Education and we would always hope that no parent or carer would wish to withdraw their child from all or part of RE. However, we recognise that parents and carers do have the right to choose whether or not to withdraw their child from RE under current legislation.  Where withdrawal is being considering, we would ask parents or carers to contact the Head Teacher who can discuss any concerns and clarify the nature and content of RE provided by school to help them make an informed decision.  If after those discussions, parents or carers request that their child is withdrawn from all or part of RE then the Headteacher will discuss with them how their child’s withdrawal can be best accommodated. 

For any further information regarding our curriculum, please contact school (see contact details) and a member of our team will be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you.