Our Curriculum

Our Curriculum at St. Wilfrid’s Church of England Primary Academy

‘A literacy-rich curriculum’

Intent

At St. Wilfrid’s Church of England Primary Academy, we aim to provide a literacy-rich curriculum that is broad and balanced, and meets the needs of the children in our Church Community. We aim to motivate and inspire children through a curriculum that engages and challenges all learners, regardless of their background, giving them the firm foundations to flourish in their primary education at St. Wilfrid’s and succeed in life.

Our ambitious curriculum is designed to deepen knowledge and develop skills, with literacy at the heart, ensuring effective progression within each subject discipline and across all year groups. Our ambition is to develop the ‘whole child’, nurturing children’s talents and celebrating their achievements and successes, both academically and in areas such as ‘The Arts’ and ‘PE and Sport’.

Our Christian Values and Distinctiveness, alongside our Christian Vision of ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’ Philippians 4:13, are at the core of our curriculum and all that we do at St. Wilfrid’s.

 

Implementation

At St. Wilfrid’s Church of England Primary Academy, we implement an inclusive curriculum that meets the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage and National Curriculum. Our curriculum is well-planned and provides literacy-rich, cross-curricular opportunities, and high-quality implementation of mathematics teaching, underpinned by fluency, reasoning and problem solving.

Each term, or half-termly in Early Years, all year groups have a ‘focus theme’, which links English to the wider curriculum. Teachers use carefully selected, high-quality focus reading texts, relating to focus themes History, Geography or Science, or in Early Years ‘Understanding the World’ and ‘Expressive Arts and Design’ to deliver elements of the English curriculum.

Within the wider curriculum, teachers ensure that there are opportunities planned for children to further develop their literacy skills, including regular cross-curricular reading and writing, ensuring that standards are consistent across the curriculum.

Knowledge and vocabulary are fundamental within our literacy-rich curriculum. Lessons are well-planned to develop and increase children’s knowledge, building on prior experiences and making connections in their learning. Children are immersed in and exposed to a diet of vocabulary, which is high-level and subject-specific, to extend their breadth of language.

Children are taught to ‘read well, quickly’ through the effective implementation of our Department for Education validated, synthetic, systematic phonics programme, Essential Letters and Sounds.

For each ‘focus theme’, teachers plan an inspiring stimulus, an exciting home learning project and a celebratory showcase event, to hook and engage children, parents and carers, and make learning purposeful and relevant. Parents and carers are provided with ‘knowledge mats’ at the start of all History, Geography and Science units, to encourage discussion with their child and deepen their knowledge and breadth of vocabulary.

Our curriculum is delivered through highly effective ‘quality first teaching’, including the use of specialist teachers in PE, Music and Computing. Teachers apply our 12 principles of ‘Great Teaching’ at St. Wilfrid’s, which is evidence-based and research-informed. Knowledge and skills are accurately assessed against ‘Age-Related Descriptors’ and ‘knowledge-based learning objectives.’

'Enrichment', including inspirational visitors and exciting educational visits, enhance teaching, learning and knowledge. A broad menu of 'Extra-Curricular' clubs is provided to children across school, which includes sport, music, languages, wellbeing, computing and media. Carefully selected 'Experiences' provide our children with unique and rich opportunities to develop Cultural Capital.

Our curriculum promotes children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development, ensuring that they are reflective and responsible citizens. Fundamental British Values are actively promoted in order to prepare the children for life in Modern Britain and in their journey to become citizens in a global world.

Our curriculum is continually shaped and developed to meet children’s interests and needs, and is supported by practices based on credible research.

 

Impact

Our literacy-rich curriculum ensures that children are knowledgeable and skilled, achieve well and make excellent progress at each stage of their education. Through the breadth and depth that our curriculum offers, children have strong character traits and are rounded and grounded, confident and resilient, and well-equipped for the future. Our curriculum enables children to become articulate and enthusiastic learners, creative and physically competent, with high aspirations and ambition.

 

‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’ Philippians 4:13

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St Wilfrid's Church of England Primary Academy
Rectory Lane, Standish, Wigan, WN6 0XB

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