Curriculum Intent, Implementation & Impact

A broad and balanced curriculum that teaches children the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in life is the foundation of a high quality education.

Academic excellence, educational equity, and fairness demand a strong foundation of knowledge for all learners

– E.D Hirsch

Intent

Every child at Ashford St Mary’s is entitled to a curriculum that is ambitious, knowledge-rich, and prepares them for life’s opportunities. Our curriculum is designed to enable each child to achieve their potential across the entire range of subject areas in the National Curriculum. We provide the children of St. Mary’s with exceptional learning experiences, which offers opportunities for them to develop their unique skills and talents at every opportunity.

Our curriculum is:

Well planned, sequenced and resourced
Knowledge-rich with skill progression in every subject area
Excellent in its use of assessment to inform teaching and improve teaching and learning

At Ashford St Mary’s our curriculum should:

provide a broad and balanced education for all children
meet the individual needs of each child to ensure that they make great progress
encourage children to be creative and develop a thirst for knowledge
foster deep interests, knowledge, and skills that will encourage our children to become lifelong learners
raise standards of attainment enabling all of our children to pursue their dreams
prepare our children for the opportunities and experiences of secondary education and beyond
promote hard work, independence and resilience
facilitate the learning of our school Christian values
create responsible citizens who can make a positive contribution to society

Organisation and structure of subject content

Our curriculum is designed to comprehensively adhere to the National Curriculum programme of study for each individual subject area. The structure of our curriculum provides a robust framework on which to build deliverable content. The knowledge and skills in each subject area has been carefully mapped to maximise learning as our children make their journey through the entire curriculum. Lessons are sequential and we plan teaching and learning to ensure that all children have the best opportunity to reach their potential in every subject area.

Implementation

At Ashford St Mary’s Primary School we are committed to the highest standards of teaching and learning. Continuous professional development of all teaching staff is a crucial part of the delivery of an excellent curriculum to all of our children. Every child is unique and teaching staff use a range of strategies which are based on cognitive science to help our children engage with the learning in our curriculum.

In delivering our curriculum our teaching staff:

create a learning environment in which the children are willing to take risks, fully engage in guided practice and eventually complete independent practice
deliver content that meets the needs and abilities of all children, giving them all the opportunity to reach their full potential
present new material in small steps whilst modelling and providing extra support when needed
check if children remember previous learning which allows them to address misconceptions and make links to previous learning
ask questions and check understanding so that our children have the opportunity to demonstrate their learning verbally
use trips and experiences to breathe life into our curriculum

We are relentless in our desire to continually improve and provide our students with the best possible education. Therefore, each teacher is responsible for an individual subject area across the school to ensure that teaching, learning and assessment in that subject is constantly monitored and improved. Our subject leaders work in groups to provide them with the opportunity to work collaboratively with other subject leaders across the school.

Impact

We believe that learning is about knowing more and remembering more. Our children learn new knowledge and skills throughout their educational journey at Ashford St Mary’s and they are given the opportunity to demonstrate this learning in a variety of ways. The teaching staff use a wide range of age-appropriate formative and summative assessments in each subject area as a tool to inform teaching and learning. We use what the children know and remember to adapt and evolve our curriculum to ensure that our children have the best opportunity to achieve success at secondary school and beyond.

The Subjects page contains links to the skills the knowledge progression for each subject. There are also detailed overviews on each the pages for each subject area.