Intent, Implementation and Impact

of Our Curriculum

Intent

At St. Bernadette’s we have designed our curriculum with pupils’ learning at the centre with the aim of ensuring that all pupils make progress. We recognise that a curriculum has to be broad, balanced and offer pupils opportunities to grow as individuals as well as learners. As a Catholic School, the teachings of the gospels are at the centre of everything we do. Pupils are taught to treat each other with respect and to support each other in their learning. We aim to ensure that pupils enjoy learning and feel prepared for life after school. We intend to offer our pupils new and exciting experiences that are designed to build resilience, confidence and self-esteem both in the classroom and through extra-curricular activities. We recognise that pupils should be challenged in their school; learning from failures and celebrating successes. We intend for our curriculum to enable pupils to develop their interpersonal skills, creativity and independence. It is our intention that pupils leave St. Bernadette’s with a sense of belonging to a community where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate and become lifelong learners.

Implementation

Teachers plan a series of lessons which build on prior learning, ensuring careful consideration for revisiting knowledge, progression and depth.

Through continuous assessment, our staff use their knowledge of what pupils already know and understand and what they will learn in the future to pitch the curriculum at the right level.

We are determined that all pupils will learn to read, regardless of their background, need or abilities; our curriculum is designed to ensure children have access to reading activities in all subjects and teachers read a variety of written material regularly with the children; fiction and non-fiction, stories, reports, diaries, poems etc. As a result, children develop a lifelong love for reading. To teach early reading and phonics, we have had the most recent training in the Sounds~Write phonics programme.

We create a happy, friendly, stimulating working atmosphere, where we place great importance on trips, workshops, clubs and other exciting opportunities to develop children’s cultural capital and to ensure learning comes to life!

Whilst the teaching and learning of Maths and English is a crucial part of everyday learning, the social, physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual growth of every child, is also a key part of our curriculum. We celebrate all types of achievements so that everybody experiences the fulfilment of personal and shared success.

Impact

How we measure the impact of our curriculum:

Reflecting on standards achieved against the planned outcomes,
Marking and in class feedback. We understand that feedback is linked to progress and has to be timely to make an impact,
Each topic begins with an evaluation of pupil’s previous knowledge,
Low risk quizzes at the end of topics,
Pupil discussions about their learning,
School reports are issued at the end of the school year. All subjects are marked as Working towards National Expectations, Meeting National Expectations or Exceeding National Expectations,
Teachers hold meetings with parents three times per year, creating an effective partnership to ensure children make progress in learning,
A celebration of work, knowledge and skills achieved on displays around the school,
Question Level Analysis of Reading and Maths tests enables teachers to focus their teaching and refine the curriculum on the needs of the individual pupils,
RE and Writing is moderated by all staff and then Teacher Assessment agreed based on the child’s performance in class,
Our tracking system is used termly to track attainment and progress and used to structure conversations in termly pupil progress meetings.
Formal Assessment Cycle:

Baseline assessments in EYFS

KS1/KS2 SATs in May

Year 1 Phonics Screen in June

Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check in June

NFER standardised tests in Reading and Maths in December, March and June/July.