Our Overarching Curriculum Intent
At St Mary’s, we believe that learning must be engaging, meaningful and memorable so that our pupils make links between the knowledge they acquire and can use this to prepare for the next stage of their education and beyond. We place the children at the centre of all we do and build upon the foundations of knowledge and skills they have, developing and nurturing their talents as they move through our school.
We foster positive relationships and embed opportunities for our pupils to recognise, value and celebrate each member of our school community as unique individuals. We want every pupil to know the importance of their place in the world. We want every pupil to be a positive role model who contributes to their wider community and sees how their contribution can benefit not only themselves but all those they come into contact with. We nurture pupils and place great value on the personal development of every pupil that attends our school.
We pride ourselves on our approach to nurturing pupils and developing the whole child as a unique individual. Practitioners at our school recognise the importance of tailoring the curriculum to suit the needs of each pupil to ensure that all have access to the full curriculum. We focus on high quality first teaching and scaffolding, with interventions taking place within the classroom wherever possible.
We aim to inspire pupils to foster a love of learning with the overarching goal that every individual will flourish personally, academically and spiritually during their time at St Mary’s. We achieve this by offering a curriculum that is broad and balanced, engaging and ever evolving to ensure that all children have the opportunity to achieve their potential.
Enabling our pupils to be confident, fluent and avid readers will always remain our core priority. We aim to develop pupils’ love of reading alongside their ability to read fluently, accurately and with stamina. We work hard to develop a positive culture towards reading for pleasure so that all pupils, irrespective of ability, will learn to love to read whilst attending our school.
We have developed a structured approach to learning that builds incrementally on prior learning and embedding knowledge into long-term memory. We aim for our pupils to know more and remember more. We place emphasis on developing pupils’ language and communication from each child’s starting points, so they acquire a wide and rich vocabulary which is reinforced in all areas of the curriculum.
We plan regular experiences to enrich the curriculum, such as: museum visits, workshops and visits to places of worship, which allow our pupils to put their learning into context. We make use of the surrounding area by visiting historic local sites, such as Hampton Court Palace, but also take advantage of the ease with which we can take our pupils into Central London.
Computing
Art
Our curriculum is underpinned by the National curriculum but led by the needs of our pupils that it serves. Our core aim is to provide a coherent, progressive and relevant curriculum that guarantees that pupils leave our school with the necessary tools they need to be successful in their future learning.