Curriculum
The curriculum at St. Mary's & St. Peter's Catholic Primary School is determined by the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, the National Curriculum, the school's Curriculum Policies, and the Leeds Diocese Religious Education Guidelines.
A new National Curriculum will be taught from September 2014, consisting of ten subjects which all children must study, plus Religious Education. These are:
English
Numeracy
Science
History
Geography
Music
Design and Technology
Physical Education
Computing
Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education (PHSCE)
Click here to view the National Curriculum that the school follows.
We follow 'The Way, The Truth and The Life' scheme of work for RE (further details can be found on the RE curriculum page).
See https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum/overview for more information or go to each curriculum's subject page on the 'curriculum' drop down menu.
All children are overseen by a class teacher, who is responsible to the Headteacher for their well-being and progress. Within each class there is a mixture of group work and whole class teaching. Pupils may be grouped by ability for some lessons, to individualise learning by enriching and extending the curriculum or providing interventions.
Assessment
Assessment, recording and reporting in this school is an important and central part of teaching and learning, which involves the children whenever possible. Children are encouraged to know the next steps in their learning, and to celebrate when individual targets are achieved.
The careful monitoring of all assessment data provides teachers with valuable information that directs their planning and gives early indication of when extra help or support is needed for children to achieve their full potential. Many intervention strategies are delivered by our Teaching Assistants to help build the confidence and achievements of pupils. Higher ability children are quickly identified and achieve impressive levels of work by tackling more challenging activities.
Under the new national curriculum guidelines, the following assessments must take place:
a short reception baseline that will sit within the assessments that teachers make of children during reception
a phonics check near the end of year 1
a teacher assessment at the end of key stage 1 in mathematics; reading; and writing, informed by pupils’ scores in externally-set but internally-marked tests (writing will be partly informed by the grammar, punctuation and spelling test); and teacher assessment of speaking and listening and science
national tests at the end of key stage 2 in: mathematics; reading; grammar, punctuation and spelling; and a teacher assessment of writing and science.
Opportunities are given twice a year to share ongoing assessment information with parents or carers through formal parent/teacher reviews. A written report is sent to parents or carers in the Summer Term to indicate teacher assessment of each child's progress. Year 2 and Year 6 SATs achievements are reported, as well as Year 1 phonics screening results and Foundation Stage progress check.