Intent
Curriculum Intent
Our aim is to develop the whole child; we value the individuality of each child and recognise our role to equip children for life in the 21st century. We believe in collaborative learning, learning from others in class, in school and in the community. At St. Cuthbert’s we strive to provide opportunities for each child to recognise their uniqueness and fulfil their potential.
We teach children to live through and make decisions rooted in their Catholic faith. Religious Education is at the heart of the curriculum; faith is a thread that runs through the curriculum supporting children to not only be curious about their learning but most importantly to be honest, respectful and empathetic.
With Christ as our role model, together we can give our children
the roots to grow and the wings to fly.
Our curriculum is ambitious for all children. It offers children the opportunities to grow as individuals as well as learners. Ultimately, our curriculum is underpinned by our FAIR values, rooted in faith and which aim to develop each child’s God given talent as learners:
Our curriculum is ambitious for all children. It offers children the opportunities to grow as individuals as well as learners. Ultimately, our curriculum is underpinned by our FAIR values, rooted in faith and which aim to develop each child’s God given talent as learners:
F: faith,
A: appreciation and articulation,
I: independence and initiative,
R: resilience and respect
The curriculum has been designed to ensure that all children leave us literate, numerate and good communicators. It has been carefully considered to build knowledge, develop creative thinking and promote independence.
The curriculum is structured:
- to set out the knowledge and skills to be gained at each stage
- around enquiry to provide purposeful, authentic outcomes within consideration to subject pedagogy
- to enable evaluation of what children know, remember and can do.
Curriculum ambition
Concepts and Enquiry:
We strive to bring the curriculum to life for all children, children from all backgrounds and academic abilities.
The curriculum allows children to deepen their understanding of big ideas/ concepts through carefully thought out termly units of work that are:
- relevant to their daily lives,
- relevant to the world they belong to,
- linked to the community and
- matter to the children.
These big, abstract concepts are thoughtfully planned and organised across the school. As children move through the school curriculum, they interact with the concept in different contexts to help them build a rich, deeply connected understanding.
These concepts are then used to create an enquiry question for each term, this question provides the thread of thinking across the subjects for the unit. To support the choices in regards to the curriculum content, each term has a project focus: Discover- History, Explore-Geography and Creative- Art and design and Design and Technology.
Year 4: The Years Curriculum Overview | ||
Autumn | Spring | Summer |
Discover | Explore | Create |
History Focus | Geography Focus | Art and Design and Design and Technology Focus |
Enquiry question | ||
Who has the power to make a difference? | If not us, who? If not now, when? | Can all bridges be rebuilt? |
Concepts | ||
Loyalty, Choice, Promise, Power, Belonging | Responsibility, Community, Compassion, Sustainability, Balance | Friendship, Cooperation, Reconciliation, Strength, Peace |
Educational visits | ||
Workshop ‘training’ let by Portals to the Past (In school) Y4 residential to High Ashurst | The Living Rainforest | Artist in to visit the children (In school) |
Authentic Outcome | ||
Lead a Viking/Anglo-Saxon workshop | Immersive rainforest experience | Art exhibition/gallery |
Authentic outcomes:
To provide real life, purposeful learning for the children the unit is planned to build towards a purposeful set of outcomes. This approach provides challenge, encourages children to take risks and learn from their mistakes. At the end of the unit, children pull together aspects of the term’s curriculum to share their learning with the local community. This curriculum design ensures children speak with confidence, communicate clearly in writing, problem solve, use IT and calculate efficiently.
Inter-disciplinary projects:
Learning is designed by selecting the subjects and content that will allow children to answer the enquiry question. This approach allows children to develop an interconnected web of knowledge across these subjects within the project. We believe that the integrity of the individual subject must be maintained, therefore the curriculum teams at St Cuthbert’s ensure the national curriculum is covered and that subjects are taught discretely with respect of the pedagogy of the subject. Children are taught to think, speak and write like a historian, a scientist, a theologian or a musician. We then further enrich the curriculum through carefully chosen trips, visitors and learning in the outdoor environment; this additionally gives children the experiences that bring the learnt knowledge to life.
“Bringing the curriculum to life for children of all backgrounds and academic abilities through a combination of exciting and authentic real-life experiences, coupled with teaching children the skills of peer critique, mastery, thinking for themselves and taking a huge amount of care and pride in their work.”
Jonathan Lear
We also aim to value the importance of our World by looking after it and appreciating all that is in it through our Outdoor Learning Curriculum.
This is what Pope Francis has asked us to do in his Encyclical:
Laudato Si.
An invitation everyone on the Planet to play their part. Please watch the video.
Subject Intent Statements