St Elphin's CE Primary School

Principles and purpose

The curriculum at St Elphin’s is exciting and inspires children to nurture a passion for learning. It is designed to meet statutory requirements by delivering the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, National Curriculum and locally agreed syllabus for Religious Education. It also provides a broad and balanced holistic education that supports the needs of all our pupils, giving them the skills, knowledge and understanding to prepare them for their future lives. Our curriculum ensures that:

• Learning is meaningful and purposeful, providing children with opportunities to actively engage in their own development and progress.
• It draws on academic success, creativity and problem solving, responsibility and resilience, as well as physical development, well-being and social skill development as key components.
• It is based on analysis of how it can benefit the needs of our children in our communities.
• It takes account of our duties outlined in the Equality Act 2010 (See equality policy and objectives).
• It meets the needs of children with SEND by providing an inclusive learning environment (See SEND policy). 
• Through the teaching and exploration of Christian and British values, the curriculum supports our children in developing attitudes and qualities which will enable them to become confident, caring, respectful and responsible citizens.
• Children develop a positive 'can do' approach that enables them not to set fixed limits on their learning potential. 
• Children have exposure to a wide experience beyond their local community e.g. School trips, sporting events, projects linked to the arts, residential visits and through visiting speakers.

Further details about the National Curriculum can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/search?q=curriculum

Christian Values based education

As a Church of England Primary School, we are a Christian Values based learning community. Each half-term the children unpack and explore a particular Christian Value which is also linked to one of the fundamental British Values. This approach is hugely important in supporting the children’s social, spiritual, emotional and cultural development and in our aim of ensuring they are fully prepared to become responsible citizens in modern Britain.

As a Church School, we place great emphasis on the teaching of RE. We follow the Blackburn Diocese scheme of work and work closely with the Diocese to ensure the curriculum provision reflects current thinking at both local and national level. We also draw on the National Understanding Christianity Programme to enhance teaching and learning.

Entitlement and Enrichment

Our long term curriculum for each subject by year group identifies cultural capital opportunities to enable children throughout school to experience wider activities that will enhance their understanding and enrich learning as well as create lasting memories via real experiences.  We incorporate whole school special days and celebrations in addition to whole school project weeks, linked to a range of subject areas, which involve experiences that we believe benefit the children in developing their understanding of the world in which they live. Within our long term curriculum documents, we have identified opportunities for educational visits, enrichment opportunities and extra-curricular activities because of the essential part they play in enabling children to make links and create memorable 'sticky' learning.

In addition, we have included vocational links to enable our children to make sense of the wider world around them and to explore potential career interests as they look ahed to their future. These can be found within each year group curriculum by subject. (See below)

Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception classes) curriculum

The Foundation Stage Framework and Development Matters are the basis of our Nursery and Reception curriculum. The topics in each year group have been chosen to enable the Reception year to build and extend on previous learning taught in Nursery. This ensures that learning is sequenced, embedded and extended in order to enable children to know and remember more.  It also ensures that children are prepared well for the next stage of their educational journey into the national curriculum.

Further details about the Framework can be found here:

 https://www.gov.uk/search?q=foundation+stage

A copy of the Development Matters documents can be found here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007446/6.7534_DfE_Development_Matters_Report_and_illustrations_web__2_.pdf