Our Curriculum

"The school’s curriculum is transformational, with reflection and justice at its heart." SIAMS

Introduction

We are committed to the development of the whole child through the provision of a progressive connected curriculum which nurtures and celebrates children’s knowledge, skills and talents. We aim to develop wider personal skills through our breadth, including enrichment activities from welcoming visitors, trips and celebrations which are linked to our personalised themes.

Our curriculum is a vehicle that can enable each child to flourish through the way we interweave the knowledge, skills and themes so that we may promote wisdom and life in all its fullness.

Our interwoven connections between subject disciplines make explicit the opportunities to consolidate concepts and apply them wisely across linked areas. This also supports memory acquisition in learning.

Character development and social justice is woven through narrative enabling children to learn to be courageous advocates through our carefully chosen stories, ensuring all are included. Philosophy for children and an enquiry-based approach to learning is how we value the learning journey and promote curiosity and humanity.

Entrance and exit points mark the journey with assessment opportunities interwoven from feedback to quizzes. The themes, that change half termly, are communicated to our pupils and parents via class newsletters. These outline project linked home learning and our knowledge organisers support and deepen acquisition, memory growth at home and school so that we work as a community to educate the child.

Curriculum Overviews

Our curriculum overviews tell you what each class is learning in each subject, and when:

English and Humanities

Maths and Science

PE (Physical Education)

RE, PSHE, P4C (Religious Education, Personal Social Health Economic, Philosophy for Children)

Music

MFL (Modern Foreign Language}

Computing

Art and Design & Technology

Being Me In My World

How psychology, neuroscience and mindfulness inform and direct our curriculum

Key questions in designing our curriculum

How does our curriculum reflect the culture, climate and values of our school? How do we ensure a broad, balanced, disciplined curriculum? How do we nourish cultural capital and courageous advocacy? How do we nourish the whole child? How is our curriculum lead?

How does our curriculum reflect the culture, climate and values of our school?

Our curriculum is carefully shaped through thorough reflection and refinement in order to promote wisdom, skills and knowledge, live life in all its fullness, developing the whole child as a unique child of God.
We construct our offer based on our belief that a St Saviour’s child is entitled to experience excellence in order to be freed from historical demographic constraints and imagine a world of infinite possibilities. We want our children to grow into people who we believe can shape the future of Modern Britain.
St Saviour’s is driven by love, and an unwavering righteous indignation that fuels our curriculum as the vehicle for change.
The pedagogical underpinnings are built upon Rosenshines Principles of Instruction and Cognitive Load theory in action.

Conceptual coherence is carefully crafted within the design process in order to deepen understanding post Covid in a world where external load has diminished internal memory capacity of some of our most vulnerable.

How do we ensure a broad, balanced, disciplined curriculum?

Our curriculum is broad and goes beyond the national to include gardening lessons, forest school, individualised and groups music tuition, weekly swimming for two years in KS2, thematically linked immersive drama experiences within the ordinary provision. Extra ordinary provision includes working with authors, mental health experts, psychologists and artists. We have above national results because we do not narrow, children have an entitlement to the education we believe grows a person.
Curriculum discipline is achieved through expert construction, carefully considered choices, alignment to our vision, values, with conceptual fidelity and duration. Content and time matter so excellent teaching and quality of education is achieved.
Curriculum balance is arrived at through debate, discussion and a respect for the power of each subject area to help a child shine. Foundation subjects are aligned with a core, conceptually so that they can be a powerful expression of a bigger whole. Summative assessment is in core subjects, tracked, analysed for group performances to identify broad next steps for school or groups through the lens of equity and inclusion. Low stakes in lesson assessments, from verbal to quizzes, electronic, spoken or written are used within most areas to support memory acquisition and retrieval. Challenge is universal, a positive mind-set and having a go after practice for performance is expected.

How do we nourish cultural capital and courageous advocacy?

Cultural capital is grown and social mobility achieved firstly through an irresistible universal offer that unshackles the imagination, then identification and targeted tailored interventions. We know the impact of our choices when our children make it Cambridge, Warwick Universities, business apprenticeships and career choices that they are proud of.
Courageous advocacy and knowing you can make a difference is expected, locally and nationally, the children's voice is enabled and heard, whether talking to local politicians or international ones. From formal lessons in citizenship, to trips or experiences that support this and opportunities taken, our children know they can make a difference.

How do we nourish the whole child?

The internal world of a child is developed through our conceptual coherence between our Religious Education, PHSE, RSE and P4C curriculum. We are the first school to receive an RE award from Jigsaw nationally, used as a training school for trainers whilst our Understanding Christianity curriculum goes beyond entitlement whilst ensuring the appropriate balance. We are innovating our offer by writing our own curriculum that extends PHSE in order to develop children’s mental health habits for the future in our current context and post Covid world. Other curriculum innovations include the RE lead writing the EYFS RE syllabus for the London Diocesan Board of Schools scheme. The Phonics and Early Reading lead writing reading assessments for the scheme and the agreement from the LA to start an Additional Resource Provision.
Personal and peer safety is addressed through embedded actions, ingrained in our school routines, that mean we rarely have incidents of homophobic or other prejudiced behaviour or forms of peer to peer abuse. When these do arise we listen to understand and take action to address issues, with proportionate and appropriate responses. We have Anti Bullying Ambassadors who lead on promoting Anti Bullying. The children have a good awareness of Bullying and how to prevent it. We know that just as children learn from their mistakes in learning, they learn socially and sometimes need to be supported to do so. Annual RSE consultations are positive and our RSE is universally effective.
We have a range of measures which provide for physical and mental wellbeing. These include our PE curriculum, an array of sporting clubs and competitions, the Daily Mile, Healthy Eating Cooking Club, our Cooking curriculum, a school based Social Worker who engages in early intervention with vulnerable children and families, a PSHE programme which promotes mental wellbeing.

How is our curriculum lead?

Curriculum leads include senior, middle and M3s new to leadership who undertake NPQs in their chosen area or in pedagogy in order to develop the evidence based critical approach beyond our school. Subject leaders are passionate and highly involved in ensuring curriculum coverage, progression and improvements. The stratification of curriculum leadership with core being led mostly by senior leaders enables natural mentoring and coaching to take place and leadership sustainability within.
Our curriculum leader works with our head of school and other senior leaders to ensure our strategic direction supports leaders.

Our Curriculum

"The school’s curriculum is transformational, with reflection and justice at its heart." SIAMS

Introduction

Curriculum Overviews

Being Me In My World

Key questions in designing our curriculum

Contact

About

Quick Links

Follow