St Mary Magdalene Catholic Primary School

Curriculum Intent

Curriculum Intent and Rationale                  

Mission Statement

Let your Light Shine

God made each one of us – we are all His unique disciples and His love is the love we share. We share our God given gifts and talents. We RESPECT each other’s differences and welcome DIVERSITY, celebrating and sharing our God given gifts and talents. We show COMPASSION and friendship for others in school, at home, in our local community and for our global family. We have the COURAGE and hope to face any challenges and follow our dreams. We are given the FREEDOM to make the most of every learning experience we have and be the very best we can be. We welcome the RESPONSIBILITY of being stewards of God’s wonderful gift of creation and caring for our common home. We place Jesus at the centre of all we do, growing in our Faith through our heads, hearts and hands.

Introduction

St Mary Magdalene Catholic Primary school is a one-form-entry school based in a single story building set in grounds and close to the sea. Our school consists of a predominantly White British demographic and parents are actively engaged with all aspects of school life.

Intent

At St Mary Magdalene our aspiration for our children is that they leave our school ready to enjoy all that the modern world offers and live their lives with respect and understanding of others. We believe that by creating a nurturing environment where our children can explore ideas about the world that they live in, through a wide range of sequenced, engaging and relevant learning experiences, will help to equip them with the skills needed to thrive in the modern world.

Providing pupils with opportunities for learning which leads to maximum growth and development is our top priority, including designing and implementing a curriculum that is best suited to their needs. We want to provide children with a curriculum with both breadth and depth, that is highly relevant and purposeful, exciting for both staff and pupils, and that is aligned to the locality and all it has to offer.

Our strong commitment to the school values of compassion, diversity, respect, courage, responsibility and freedom creates the platform for our pupils to safely explore new ideas and develop their learning throughout their educational journey at St Mary Magdalene Catholic Primary School.

Our intent is to raise standards across all subjects, to enable our pupils to access and engage with their learning to ensure both academic and personal success.

Rationale for Implementation

We want our pupils to become educated global citizens and use the Dimensions ‘Learning Means the World’ Curriculum as the vehicle for helping us achieve this, with a view to changing our pupils’ hearts, as well as their minds.

This curriculum is underpinned by four highly relevant world issues, known as the four Cs:-

• Culture
• Communication
• Conflict
• Conservation

How the 4Cs will be implemented at our school

Communication

We have identified developing excellent vocabulary and communication skills as a priority for equipping our pupils for the future.

Our curriculum provides a wealth of opportunities for pupils to develop their language and vocabulary, helping them to articulate their learning, express their thinking and opinions clearly in discussion, debate and presentation, as well as enabling collaboration and exchange of ideas.

We want our pupils to use a wide range of communication tools as a means of increasing confidence, developing self-regulation and nurturing their critical thinking skills.

Culture

At St Mary Magdalene we have links to a school in Sierra Leone and have previously, and recently, exchanged teachers. We have a diverse community but with a majority of white British pupils, we want to enhance this by teaching our pupils to fully appreciate and embrace cultural diversity, learning about and experiencing a range of different cultural and faith heritages found in wider society.

We want our children to value diversity, understand the roots and importance of cultural heritage and to behave in a respectful and tolerant way towards others, regardless of faith, ethnicity or background. We actively and explicitly promote cross-cultural friendship, respect, tolerance and understanding through ‘Learning Means the World’.

Conflict

We believe that 21^st century skills should be taught throughout the curriculum and building up resilience to help pupils cope in a range of difficult situations is part of this process. An understanding of responsible, respectful behaviour is an important aspect of learning. Coming from an area with a rich history of conflict, and being a restorative justice school, we believe this is a highly relevant focus for our curriculum. Having a developed understanding of sources of conflict and the importance of seeing things from others’ points of view, we believe, will make a difference to children's own choices as they learn more about conflict resolution.

Conservation

We want our pupils to fully appreciate and benefit from all that the local area has to offer. We want to develop children as good stewards for the future who can really make a difference, and who are willing to get involved locally, whilst also seeing the wider global picture. Our pupils have recently been involved in the development of the school nature garden which had to be put on hold due to the pandemic.

We also encourage our pupils to have high aspirations by teaching them about human creativity and achievement through additional Competency Units about famous figures such as Elizabeth Blackwell and that focus on Creativity, Commitment, Courage and Community.

Curriculum Drivers

Currently, we have three drivers that shape our curriculum. These drivers reflect the needs of our children and the values of our school and are designed to bring our aims and core values to life and to meet the needs of our children.

Global Community - we want our children to grow up loving our world, feeling a valuable part of it and knowing that they have a contribution to make.

Through learning about the world, we want them to understand their role in society and develop respect towards the environment, communities and religions by:

• Noting cultural awareness and celebrating diversity
• Participation in the local and global community and being a beacon for others
• Utilising our local area
• Nurturing environmental awareness
• Relating learning to real-life context
• Investigating the impact of the important individuals in our world
• Using technology and connectivity

Spirituality - we are creating an atmosphere for Spiritual growth at the centre of all teaching. Children are encouraged to:

• Pray, reflect, contemplate and make links with their daily life and gospel values and in doing so develop a relationship with God
• Look inwards to think about their own beliefs, values, hopes, dreams, feelings, ideas and aspirations
• Look outwards, to reflect on and appreciate the natural world, the environment and human achievement
• Develop a sense of awe and wonder
• Develop a sense of responsibility towards others and themselves

Equipped for life - We understand the importance of preparing children for their future. We recognise the importance of making connections. We support our children in becoming confident readers and  develop a growth mindset so that they can:

• Become life-long readers who read for pleasure
• Develop a rich and varied vocabulary so that they can communicate well
• Develop resilience, perseverance and be open to challenge
• See mistakes as the launchpad for new learning
• Discover and develop individual talents and skills
• Have the confidence to take risks and explore possibilities
• Have high aspirations for their future