The Curriculum at St Peters

Curriculum Golden Threads

Unlocking potential in all, empowering a community of hope.

As an inclusive Christian community, we work towards unlocking the potential in all and empowering a community of hope. We seek to achieve this by providing a safe, inspiring and creative learning environment where all can flourish. We build our success on the foundation of our shared values and our consistently high expectations. Through challenge and support, we strive for excellence in all we do.

Curriculum Intent

At St Peter at Gowts, our values-based curriculum is inspiring and creative, unlocking potential in all. Our curriculum seeks to ensure that all pupils flourish through challenge, support and a broad and balanced curriculum rooted in shared values and consistently high expectations, striving for excellence in all curriculum areas.

“Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap.”― St. Hildegard of Bingen

Our four golden threads are woven throughout everything we do at St Peter’s. They form our key curriculum drivers, giving our curriculum a clear and cohesive intent.

1. Values – St Peter’s curriculum is a values-based curriculum where values are modelled, interwoven and celebrated throughout the school day, constantly underpinning our thinking and behaviour.
2. Inspiration – Our curriculum thrives on enriching children through a variety of inspiring experiences, such as immersive environments, wow days, learning exhibitions, workshops, visitors and visits to provide all of our children with the experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise receive. We have a broad portfolio of extra-curricular clubs which are well attended across the full scope of the school.
3. Community – At St Peter’s we aim to be the beacon of hope in our diverse, inclusive community, supporting children and families to unlock their full potential through school community projects, educational training sessions and signposting to supportive groups. Our community encompasses a vast variety of cultures and beliefs and as a school we work hard to include everyone! We enhance our school curriculum by embracing the learning opportunities and resources within our inner-city community.
4. Excellence – At St Peter’s we have high expectations for all and constantly strive to unlock the potential of our school community. Our children are able to achieve through our ambitious and cohesively planned curriculum, balancing knowledge and skill development in all areas in order to excel.

Curriculum Implementation

Our curriculum is planned to equip children with the knowledge that they will need throughout life; our well-planned, immersive approach allows the children to make links within and between subjects in order to develop a deep understanding and high knowledge retention. In Nursery and Reception, we follow our ‘Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum’ document. The children’s learning experiences are carefully planned to enable them to develop and achieve in the early learning areas through play and investigative learning experiences. The EYFS curriculum is planned for the inside and outside classrooms and equal importance is given to learning in both areas. The Early Years curriculum uses a transferrable skills based curriculum which is planned and adapted according to the children’s interests, enabling all aspects of the children’s development, integrated with whole school approaches such as Talk for Writing, Read, Write Inc. and mastery maths built on the small step principles of White Rose Maths.

Our curriculum from Year 1 onwards, integrates the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum in a sequential and engaging way. It is designed to equip all children, including those with SEND, PP and EAL children, with the key knowledge and experiences to succeed. Alongside the National Curriculum for English, Maths, Science, Computing, History, Geography, Art and Design, Design and Technology, Music and Languages we follow the Lincolnshire RE syllabus and have developed a whole school RSE policy. All elements of this are underpinned by our Values curriculum. We  have a clear long-term overview which encourages cross-curricular work wherever possible aiding both knowledge retention and enjoyment. Within this context, we still ensure that children understand the unique contribution and disciplines of individual subject areas.

Fundamentally, we are a values-based school and we are proud of our Church School distinctiveness. We strive for excellence through our ambitious and cohesively planned curriculum and recognise the importance of inspiring reading from a young age. A strong reading culture is developed throughout the school and we ensure opportunities for all readers are woven throughout the curriculum. Our ‘wow and ‘wonder’ days inspire and enrich the curriculum through first hand experiences coupled with a cohesive extra curriculum programme, which develops learning beyond the classroom. As a school we work to celebrate the diversity within our community and enhance our curriculum by embracing community projects and opportunities.

Inspiring and knowledgeable subject leaders are the driving force behind the rigorous development and sustained high expectations of all the curriculum subjects. Our pedagogy is based on evidence-based research, shown to impact on quality first teaching. Leaders work hard to create meaningful links, which allow the children to fluently transfer their learning across the curriculum. Our strategy for successful implementation of our intended curriculum is to create a culture where collaboration and professional dialogue between subject leaders delivers a curriculum that builds on prior learning, deepens knowledge and enhances skills that foster learning and achievement. We engage in a constant cycle of review and evaluation. As a school team we value the opportunity to work collaboratively within and outside of school and constantly reflect on our practice to improve teaching and learning and ensure the highest-level outcomes for all children.

Curriculum Impact

Our children will evolve into confident, articulate individuals with a strong moral compass. They will be well equipped for the next stage of their educational development with aspirational hopes for the future.

Please contact the school directly, either using the ‘Contact Us’ page, calling 01522880071 or pop in to make an appointment, if you would like to know more about the curriculum at St Peter’s.

Phonics and Reading

In Reception and KS1, the children start the day with a fast paced Read, Write, Inc. phonics session. Read Write Inc is designed to help teachers teach children how the alphabet works for reading and spelling. It focuses on securing word recognition skills, as these are essential for children to decode (read) and encode (spell) words accurately with ease, and so concentrate on comprehending and composing text. Systematic, high quality phonics teaching is essential, but more is needed for children to achieve the goal of reading, which is comprehension. More information on Read, Write, Inc. can be found here: http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/ .

In KS2, reading is developed in whole class skills based sessions using high quality texts, in whole class reading, through class stories and reading across the curriculum. Children read and write a range of high quality fiction and non-fiction texts which are linked to their topics. Strong links are made between reading and writing. Every reading sessions starts with fluency focus and then children participate in both whole class and small group reading sessions, engaging and responding with a range of texts, in order to develop their key reading skills of decoding, retrieval, exploration, analysis and deduction.

Writing

At the heart of our teaching of writing is the Pie Corbett ‘Talk for Writing’ approach. Talk for Writing enables children to ‘say it before they can write it’. Through fun activities that help them rehearse the tune of the language they need, followed by shared writing to show them how to craft their writing, children are helped to write in the same style. The use of high quality texts and visual literacy (images and films) are a key resource to facilitate the teaching of writing. More information on Talk for Writing can be found here: https://www.talk4writing.co.uk/about/.

We use the LEAD Teaching School Hub Active approaches to teaching spelling and grammar. These programmes are progressive and research drive and well embedded throughout school.

Maths

In EYFS, we use Master the Curriculum, which is build upon the principles and small steps of White Rose Maths. From Y1, we use the White Rose Edition of Power Maths to support the teaching and learning of maths across Key Stages 1 and 2. Power Maths is a whole-class mastery programme designed to spark curiosity and excitement and help you nurture confidence in maths. At the heart of Power Maths is the belief that all children can achieve. It’s built around a child-centred lesson design that models and embeds a growth mindset approach to maths. Taken from the Pearson website. More information about Power Maths can be found here: https://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/Primary/Mathematics/AllMathematicsresources/Power-Maths/power-maths-mastery.aspx

Children from Nursery to Year 6 also take part in daily CLIC sessions from Big Maths. Big Maths seeks to address the common lack of confidence shown by children in maths. The 4 elements of CLIC are: Counting, Learn Its, It’s Nothing New! and Calculations. Children work through each of the different areas and practise their maths skills and apply and their knowledge. More information about CLIC and Big Maths can be found here: http://www.andrelleducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Big-Maths-CLIC-Book-Introduction.pdf