What We Teach at

St Patrick’s,

And How

THE CURRICULUM

What is the Curriculum?

The curriculum consists of all the activities that take place in school - not only the formal programme of lessons, but also the “hidden” curriculum.  The hidden curriculum is the informal programme of extracurricular activities and the ethos that the school promotes, such as the quality of relationships, care and respect for the environment, the development of self-discipline, concern for the equality of opportunity, etc.  In the early years the curriculum is planned from the six areas of learning in the Foundation Curriculum:

• Creative development
• Communication, Language and Literacy
• Personal and Social development
• Physical development
• Knowledge and Understanding of the world
• Mathematical development

Gradually from Year 1 the National Curriculum is introduced.  This consists of five core subjects:

• English
• Mathematics
• Science
• RE
• IT

and six foundation subjects:

• History
• Geography
• Music
• Art
• Physical Education
• Design Technology

Programmes of study for each subject i.e. what we have to teach are provided in each curriculum document.  The children in years 3, 4, 5 and 6 continue through Key Stage 2 before transferring to High School to start Key Stage 3.

Other Curriculum Areas

The National Curriculum is, however, only part of the whole school curriculum.  There are a number of areas that are cross -curricular such as equal opportunities, environmental education, health education, education for citizenship and personal and social education.  These are implicit within the school ethos and organisation and are also covered within the Units of Work studied by the children during their time at school.

Further Information

Parents are provided with a guide half termly, explaining the various areas of work to be covered each half term.  School Policies are available from the school office.  Interview/Open Evenings are held during the year.  A written report is given to parents in July at the end of each academic year.

How the Curriculum is Taught

Our policy is to teach a child-centred curriculum, to start where the child is in terms of their own learning, to build on what experiences they have already had and to be aware of and sensitive to each child’s individual needs and abilities.

We teach skills (such as reading, handwriting and spelling) and concepts (such as night and day, magnetism, time and number) as well as developing attitudes (such as personal responsibility, care and justice) and for this the actual process of learning is as important as the content and so also needs careful consideration in curriculum planning.  Children need a variety of learning situations so:

• At times children will be working on his/her own e.g. solving a mathematical problem

• At other times children will be working as part of a group e.g. carrying out a scientific experiment and discussing the results

• At times children will be given information e.g. being told geographical facts about an area and taught the skills of map reading

• At other times children will be actively involved in finding information e.g. looking at photographs to discover historical details, and in practising skills by playing football, netball, cricket, rounders etc in games

• At times your children be taught as part of the whole class

• At other times children will be taught in a small group or individually,

but all the time we will be developing positive attitudes to learning and be expecting the highest standards in work and in behaviour of which each child is capable.  There will be constant positive acknowledgement of effort as well as of achievement.

CURRICULUM POLICIES

GENERAL POLICIES

Other policies are also available from the school office.