Our Curriculum Intent 2024-2025

A Shared Vision for Learning at St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School

Intent...

 At St. Francis Xavier we put Christ at the centre of all we do. Our school mission is to ensure every pupil knows that God has created them to be unique, to live out the Gospel values and to become trusting, forgiving and loving people.  We know our children well, and form positive relationships from the very first interaction. 

 The curriculum at St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School embraces the virtues of living, loving and learning together within a Catholic ethos. At its heart are three principles:

• nurturing young people to be virtuous individuals who are equipped with the strength and courage to put their faith into action to become full and active members of society.
• inspiring our young people to achieve highly and aspire to setting personal goals.
• collaborative learning that promotes positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation and simultaneous interaction.

 Our curriculum intent is centred on creating an inclusive and welcoming culture of opportunity that allows every child to flourish through choice and challenge.

We aim to achieve this by:

• offering learning experiences that not only inspire our young people, but supports them to connect and reflect on that learning.
• planning meaningful sequences of lessons that build on prior learning experiences that promote memory retention.
• enabling young people to acquire the knowledge, understanding and skills necessary to be successful in a range of areas of learning.
• organising classroom talk that develops language and communication in order to think and reflect on learning and progress.
• nurturing individual talents and gifts.
• using world, national and local events and other resources available to us to enhance young people’s knowledge and understanding of the world around them.
• encouraging our young people to be healthy in mind, body and spirit.

When children leave St Francis Xavier, we want them to be proud, virtuous young people who are empowered to go out in to the worlds and use their God given talents to be the best they can be, for the benefit of all around them.

We will achieve this through a well-sequenced, coherent curriculum which is:

• influenced by Catholic (CSPP) and British Values which are at the heart of our school ethos;
• broad and balanced to ensure our children learn across a wide spectrum of subjects;
• sequential and progress to ensure that our children are always building on prior learning and knowledge;
• a language rich culture that enables pupils to articulate their thinking and express themselves; accessible for all pupils.
• accessible to all, regardless of need;
• inclusive and encouraging, underpinned with a capital approach so that every child realises their individual strengths

 High quality reading opportunities underpin the children's lives in school- from high quality take home books, to our book vending machine, we strive to develop a love of reading in all of our children, as well as exposing them to a wide range of language rich experiences.

IMPLEMENTATION…

 In ensuring progress is made and can be measured throughout the school, implementing a holistic approach to teaching and learning is seminal for our children. Our curriculum is planned to ensure all children have equal access to all areas of the curriculum, enrichment activities and extra-curricular learning too. We use a range of assessment across both our core and foundations subjects, to inform our future planning to ensure that our pupils are always developing secure substantive and disciplinary knowledge- ensuring they are knowing more and remembering more. 

Christ is at the centre of our curriculum and the Catholic Pupil Profile is instrumental in the teaching of the values and virtues of our Catholic faith. We have devised our curriculum to ensure breadth and balance for all. We shape our curriculum utilising features within our local area which has enabled us to develop our children’s music, science, art, and history and geography skills. We utilise our local area well, to help us build on experiences available to for our children to thrive.

 We ensure that our staff are apart of CPD, which ensures that they are implementing the curriculum as it was intended, and to ensure that they develop their own subject knowledge in order to deliver up do date, accurate knowledge (both Substantive and disciplinary.)

 Our pedagogical strategies for high quality teaching, are underpinned by the Rosenshein’s Principals, and this enables our staff to fully understand the ingredients that ensure successful learning opportunities for all of our children.

 We have excellent relationships with our parish church and local community. As much as possible, we take our children out of the local area, to provide them with rich learning experiences which they are able to talk about with their friends and families and make links with their learning in school. Our multi-agency approach is implemented throughout our school and the utilisation of a range of agencies helps to close the gaps for some of our most vulnerable children.

 Alongside teaching of curriculum subjects and assessment of attainment and progress, we ensure that our children’s talents and successes are celebrated throughout school.  We hold weekly Gift’s of God achievement assemblies which not only celebrate academic gains but personal ones too. Children and parents are invited and encouraged to bring in their ‘out of school’ certificates and trophies; this helps to inspire children to work hard in all areas of their learning as we embed a culture of celebrating all achievements for every child. High expectations of all our children leads to high aspirations and the belief that the can achieve in all they do.

 With the understanding that some of our children enter our school with lower than national starting points, we believe that family and community engagement is key to break down the barriers of any possible, pre-existing negative school experiences and to welcome families into our happy school

IMPACT...

During their time at St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School, we ensure that children not only acquire the appropriate age related knowledge linked to the curriculum but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points. In shaping our curriculum this way, progress is measured and evidenced for all children, regardless of starting points or specific needs.

 We teach our children to ensure we alter their long-term memories and we define progress as knowing and remembering more. Teachers and staff work hard to plan a broad and balanced curriculum, which is delivered to ensure a child’s entire school experience enables them to develop a deep body of knowledge, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life in whatever they choose.

 When our children leave us, as well as being ready for a KS3 curriculum, they have a wealth of transferrable skills which, have been developed throughout their time at primary school in an inclusive and nurturing environment. 
 When children leave our school, they are faith-filled and ready to make a positive contribution to society; have been supported through their transition; have
been exposed to rich vocabulary and have high aspirations and self-belief all through the teaching of this broad and balanced curriculum.