Holy Family Catholic Primary School
Holy Family Catholic Primary School

Curriculum Statement

At Holy Family Catholic Primary School, the children in our care are at the heart of everything we do. Every pupil should leave knowing God’s love and being able to show God’s love. We believe that all children are unique and must be celebrated for the special gifts and talents that they possess.

We adopt fully inclusive practice, which means all children can access the curriculum we offer, regardless of their learning requirements. Each day we encourage our children to be the best that they can be, take pride in their learning, and make a real difference.

Inspired by Pope Francis we endeavour to ‘light a fire in the hearts’ of our children, empowering them to make a real difference in our diverse, ever changing society.

Intent

The breadth of our curriculum is designed with these goals in mind:

  1. To give children appropriate experiences to develop as confident, responsible citizens;
  2. To develop in each child the ability to relate and co-operate with others in the process of learning; to foster respect for religious and moral values, and tolerance of other races, religions and ways of life.
  3. To provide a coherent, structured, academic curriculum that leads to sustained mastery for all and a greater depth of understanding for those who are capable.

Our pupils’ backgrounds, our culture and our climate for learning provide the following drivers that underpin all areas of our curriculum. At the centre is our Mission, which shapes our curriculum, brings about the aims and values of our school, and responds to the particular needs of our community. The drivers that promote this are:

  • Faith and Spirituality – this helps our children to develop personal relationships with God through prayer and reflection. Our Values, Virtues and Catholic Social teachings inform our daily lives throughout curriculum teaching. As brothers and sisters in an ever-changing diverse community, we respect and value the beliefs of others and recognise how they have an impact on our community.
  • Possibilities – through extensive reading, which helps children to build aspirations and know available possibilities for their future lives. Children develop their vocabulary to articulate this vision.
  • Environment (extending knowledge of the world) – which helps children to understand and appreciate their locality, facilitating their relationship to the wider world and encourages a dedication to it.

Our curriculum is designed to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum, while also being tailored to the specific needs and context of our school community. The high levels of deprivation, mobility, and EAL learners in our school mean that providing a bespoke curriculum with a focus on building cultural capital is essential. We recognise that our families bring a wealth of cultural identities and experiences from which our pupils can grow and flourish. Through planned experiences, trips, visits and carefully selected resources, pupils are given background knowledge, vocabulary and interactions, which support each step of their learning journey, capturing the wonder and awe of the world we live in.

Our curriculum is aspirational, with a clear focus on developing pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding across a broad range of subjects. We use both the EYFS framework and the National Curriculum to shape the content and expectations of our curriculum, ensuring that it is coherent, well-sequenced and supports pupils’ progression from one phase to the next.

Whole School Aims

Our curriculum is underpinned by the school’s vision and values, as outlined in the school information provided. We aim to create an environment where children take pride in their learning, strive to be the best they can be, and make a difference in all they do. This is achieved through high expectations, a culture of ambition, challenge and achievement, and a commitment to developing the whole child.

Our core value of ‘be the best you can be’ means that we have planned a broad, balanced and diverse curriculum that is inspiring and inclusive, with the intention that children can fulfil their potential and grow their talents, no matter what their starting point.

Subject Vision

The teaching of each subject within our curriculum is driven by a clear vision and intent. For example, in English, our aim is to develop children’s love of language, providing them with the skills and knowledge to become confident, articulate communicators. We adopt a text-based approach to teaching and learning, using high-quality literature to inspire and engage our pupils.

In Mathematics, we follow a mastery approach, ensuring that all children develop a deep, conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts. Our intent is for children to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, able to reason mathematically and solve problems effectively.

Across all subjects, our curriculum is designed to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding, while also fostering their personal development, including their spiritual, moral, social and cultural growth. This aligns with the school’s improvement priorities, which focus on embedding Catholic Social Teaching, developing a coherent and well-sequenced curriculum, and improving the social and emotional wellbeing of identified groups within the school.

Our skilled and knowledge based  curriculum is structured this so that each year group has:

  • a clear list of the breadth of topics that will be covered;
  • the ‘Essential Key Learning Objectives’ pupils should understand;
  • criteria for progression
  • criteria for depth of understanding.

The curriculum breadth for each year group ensures each teacher has clarity as to what to cover. As well as providing the key knowledge within subjects, it also provides for pupils’ growing cultural capital.

There are disciplinary aspects of each subject. (As, for example historians or geographers). They are chosen to build conceptual understanding within subjects and are repeated in each topic.

Implementation

Our curriculum design is based on evidence from cognitive science; three main principles underpin it:

  • Learning is most effective with spaced repetition.
  • Interleaving helps pupils to discriminate between topics and aids long-term retention.
  • Retrieval of previously learned content is frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength.

In addition to the three principles, we also understand that learning is invisible in the short-term and that sustained mastery takes time.

Some of our content is subject specific, whilst other content is combined in a cross-curricular approach.As a school, we place a great deal of importance on academic learning, and we take the progress and attainment of each child achieving the very best they are capable of very seriously. However, we also view each child as a complete person, and our curriculum has been tailored to ensure that each child grows as a person, and recognises their place in our community and in our ever-changing world.

Our approach to teaching across the whole curriculum puts children at the heart of their own learning, taking an active part in lessons and ensuring that the children are rich in language and cultural capital by the time they leave us to continue their educational journey. We recognise that children have a thirst for knowledge and we are committed to nurturing young: writers, performers, readers, mathematicians, scientists, historians, geographers, artists, designers, musicians, sports persons, computer users and so much more. We aim to provide the building blocks of knowledge that enable the children to progress and follow their dreams through fostering the qualities of resilience and inquiry as well as planning opportunities for the children to know about keeping safe.

With the understanding that a high number of our children enter our school below age related expectations, we believe that family and community engagement is key to breaking down the barriers of any possible, pre-existing negative school experiences and to welcome families in to our happy, vibrant school.

The Early Years curriculum focuses on play-based learning, which is informed by children’s interests and targeted next steps, and complemented with a balance of explicit adult directed tasks. This approach to teaching ensures high level engagement for all children throughout their Early Years’ education and creates positive learning experiences in readiness for Key Stage 1.

As children move into Key Stage 1 and through Key Stage 2, they are taught through discrete subjects but with links being made across subjects to support coherency and progression.

In our English curriculum we adopt a text-based approach to teaching and learning and in our Maths curriculum we adopt a ‘Mastery Approach to Teaching and Learning’.

Language is a key focus for us, both to develop the children’s oracy and communication abilities, and also to provide them with the rich and specific vocabulary from across the curriculum that underpins their knowledge and understanding of different subjects.

We are committed to fostering a community that embodies Catholic social teaching, which emphasises the dignity of the individual and the common good, reflecting Gospel values such as love, compassion, and justice. By instilling virtues like respect, responsibility, and empathy, we encourage our pupils to understand their role in building a supportive and inclusive environment. In addition to these foundational principles, we promote British Values—Democracy, Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect, and Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs—ensuring that children are aware of their rights and responsibilities as UK citizens. These values convey a clear message to our young people: ‘In Britain, no matter what your background, you can fit in, you can succeed, and you can belong.’ While these values they are integral to our ethos, guiding our pupils to actively contribute to a harmonious community where all can thrive.

Learning is also enhanced by a carefully planned range of educational visits/visitors. Our curriculum is also structured to embrace the use of local resources, as well as those further afield, to enhance the children’s learning experiences (as detailed in our school events)

We are a School of Sanctuary and have achieved CAFOD’s Live Simply Award and as part of this we promote a better understanding of how to protect and look after our world and the people in it.

We implement our curriculum in such a way that it is accessible and appropriately sequenced and paced for all levels of ability. Our approach to assessment is built upon these milestones, looking to use assessment to monitor and support the children’s learning over a number of years.

Our School Community

To ensure the successful implementation of our curriculum, we will communicate the rationale and vision effectively with all stakeholders, including staff, pupils, parents and governors.

For staff, we will provide comprehensive training and support to deepen their subject knowledge and understanding of the curriculum. This will include regular professional development meetings, opportunities for subject-specific training, and collaborative planning sessions to ensure consistency and progression across the school.

For pupils, we will ensure that the curriculum is clearly communicated, with a focus on helping them understand the purpose and relevance of their learning. This will be achieved through engaging lessons, regular feedback, and opportunities for pupils to reflect on their progress and set personal goals.

For parents, we will share the curriculum rationale and vision through a range of channels, including the school website, newsletters, and parent workshops. This will help parents to understand the school’s approach and support their children’s learning at home.

Governors will be closely involved in the development and implementation of the curriculum, with regular updates and opportunities to provide feedback and challenge. This will ensure that the curriculum remains aligned with the school’s vision and priorities, and that it is effectively meeting the needs of all pupils.

Impact

The impact of our curriculum is that by the end of each Milestone, the vast majority of pupils have sustained mastery of the content, that is, they remember it all and are fluent in it; some pupils have a greater depth of understanding. We track carefully to ensure pupils are on track to reach the expectations of our curriculum. As a result, most children who leave our school will have:

  • A strong spiritual knowledge and faith based upon Holy Family’s Mission statement and the Catholic ethos of our school.
  • Catholic Social Teaching which helps make the worship relevant to our lives today. Catholic Social Teaching underpins the essence of our daily school life.
  • A strong web of knowledge across the curriculum subjects that is deep, durable and transferable from one context to another.
  • The ability to retrieve knowledge and make connections between contexts.
  • The ability to apply their skills across a range of subjects.
  • An ability to think deeply about important concepts.
  • An ability to apply their knowledge and use it to solve problems and generate creative solutions.
  • The ability to be creative, innovative and think critically.
  • Sympathetic awareness of other people’s feelings.
  • Tolerance and forgiveness.
  • The ability to make deeper connections in their learning as a result of their access to experiences through our school that they would not otherwise have had.
  • The ability to think critically about the knowledge they have gained and make emotionally literate and morally responsible decisions/choices.
  • The knowledge and resilience that they need to keep themselves and others safe.