Curriculum Information

At St Martin’s Garden Primary School we believe education is a key factor in transforming the lives of children so that they can be whatever they choose to be. We believe in nurturing children so that they thrive in school and as a result are ready to learn and progress.

Our Mission statement isAspire, Reach Out, Together, Achieve!

The pupils, parents, staff and governors at St Martin’s Garden Primary School work together to create a school that sits at the heart of the local community. We ensure that our children enjoy learning and achieve their full potential by providing an engaging and enriching curriculum which is accessible to all.

Curriculum Intent:

At St Martin’s Garden Primary School the broad and balanced curriculum which we provide is underpinned by 5 core values. These are Joy, Kindness, Honesty, Respect and Forgiveness. They are woven into our curriculum to support our children to become successful members of society. We use all the resources our unique site offers to facilitate this.

We have identified three key statements of intent:

Statement 1: To further develop a reading-rich curriculum which develops learning and results in the acquisition of knowledge which is retained, ensuring that all pupils know more, remember more and understand more.

Statement 2: To enrich the curriculum so that is celebrates difference, ensures equality and equity of opportunity as well as supporting our children to make a positive difference to society now and in the future.

Statement 3: To design a challenging curriculum which build progressively upon acquired language and skills which nurtures learning behaviours, develops inquisitive minds and resilient attitudes and ensures all our pupils reach or exceed their potential.

We have designed the curriculum in a sequential and coherent way so that children build knowledge, skills and understanding towards defined outcomes in each subject area at the end of Year 6. We teach all subjects in the national curriculum.

Foundation subjects are organised into Learning Enquiries with key drivers. Each subject is organised through a progression model that maps out the knowledge, skills and vocabulary to be taught. Teachers use the subject specific progression maps to plan their sequence of learning across the term.  Teachers identify the subject specific skills, vocabulary and knowledge being taught so that children have a clear understanding of each subject area.

Children know that they are Historians, Artists, Designers, Engineers, Scientists, Geographers etc. Learning is regularly revisited over the course of the school year and Key Stage so that children’s understanding is built on and deepened over time. The curriculum is planned so that children are exposed to the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.

Implementation

All learning will start by revisiting prior knowledge. This will be scaffolded to support children to recall previous learning and make connections. All staff will model explicitly the subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow pupils to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.

Teachers support children to practice new learning, ask questions to develop understanding, check for misconceptions and give clear, timely and appropriate feedback. They move children from supported practice to independence at the correct pace for them, ensuring all children are challenged. Learning is further supported through the use of ‘knowledge meetings’ that aim to help them retain new knowledge and vocabulary. These meetings support the children to commit this knowledge to their long–term memory.

We aim to provide a consistent and low sensory classroom environment whenever appropriate. Learning walls and spaces provide reminders of content, vocabulary and scaffolds for the children. Subject specific or ‘tier three’ vocabulary (based on the research of Beck and Quigley), is displayed alongside key facts, questions, model exemplars of the learning as well as sentence stems to support responses.

Frequent curriculum low stakes quizzes, are used to review learning and check that children know more and remember more. These are based research by Spencer Kagan and require children to think deeply. Learning is reviewed on a termly basis, after a period of forgetting, so that teachers can check whether information has been retained.

In the ways described above, assessment for learning and our feedforward approach is used within every subject to inform teachers’ future planning and interventions.  Summative assessment is completed at the end of each half-term in Phonics, Reading, Writing and Maths. Progression assessments are used to support the assessment of other subjects alongside children’s learning outcomes.

Our children will be given a variety of carefully selected experiences to create memorable learning opportunities and to further support and develop their understanding and language acquisition.

Impact

Children will leave St Martin’s Garden Primary school as confident, resilient and creative life-long learners who are well prepared for their next phase of learning. They will know their place within the community, locally and the wider world. They will be aware of the opportunities available to them and be prepared to take advantage of them.

Our website, social media and Newsletter demonstrate how our children are exposed to our curriculum. To see the true impact of our curriculum please visit us to see our learning environments, pupil's work, displays and to meet our children. This will allow the children to talk about their knowledge and show you the connections they are making across our curriculum.

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