Our Vision; Our Curriculum Intent

Just like everything in our school, our curriculum is underpinned by our Christian Vision and our Values…

As a Christian school, St Martin and St Mary is an inclusive and happy community; nurturing confidence, a thirst for learning and resilience in a safe, loving environment. Our priority is developing the whole child spiritually, emotionally, physically and academically to live the most rewarding life.

‘Life in all its fullness’ John 10.10

Our Values;

Friendship      Love      Forgiveness      Trust      Honesty      Faith

Our place in the world…

Our Christian culture – as a Church school we regularly invite children to engage in acts of Collective Worship, we pray to God and learn about Jesus and his teachings from the Bible. We celebrate Christian faith together. We actively engage with our local faith communities to deepen and support our school vision, values and spiritual wellbeing. We learn about varied faith and non-faith belief systems from across the world.

Our community – we actively engage with our local community and they actively engage with and support us. We host annual events and celebrations that involve our families and the wider community (our annual Remembrance Service for example). We work closely with other educational establishments to secure the best opportunities and outcomes for our children.

Our landscape – our school serves two lively tourist villages set in a beautiful and wild landscape. We use the outdoors and our local area to contextualise and enhance our learning. We also use the outdoors, and places near to us, to develop our own resilience and our interpersonal skills.

Our country – we understand that we live in a developed, diverse and vibrant nation. Our country has benefitted from being at the forefront of cultural and technological advances and has welcomed people from across the planet as a place to make home. We know that we enjoy relatively safe lives compared to others around the globe but we also recognise the challenges that we might face as we journey into adulthood in our society. We recognise and embrace British Values and understand how they complement the values of Primary School.

Our planet – we learn about the environment and have a deep concern for the future of our planet and its inhabitants. We learn about how our actions impact on habitats, wildlife and communities across the globe. We take steps to reduce this impact.

What else do you need to know about our school and our curriculum design?

At St Martin and St Mary Church of England Primary School we have created a happy and secure environment where children enjoy a broad, deep and relevant curriculum that is underpinned by our school vision, life in all its fullness. We want children to learn about, appreciate and enjoy the very best that life has to offer so that they can find fulfilment and contentment in the life they choose to live. The curriculum is progressive across the years, regularly building on learning from day to day, week to week and in each school year. Through our learning we make memories. The curriculum is also flexible and responsive to the individual needs of different children and the challenges that our community, both local and global, is facing at any one time.

The curriculum is carefully designed to fulfil the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum and The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum but goes way beyond those requirements to provide children with a childhood primary school journey that enables them to be the best that they can be. It is led and implemented by the class teachers who work together as a team, drawing upon each other’s specialist subject knowledge, to plan and implement high quality teaching and learning experiences.

As a Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School, RE is a core component of our curriculum. We learn about the Christian faith and the beliefs and non-beliefs of other people around the world to guide us in a better understanding of the world and our own spirituality. Children are invited to pray and to worship but we ensure that all children are included in learning regardless of belief.

Outdoor learning is a key feature of our curriculum for our very youngest pupils to those children in Year 6. We have fabulous grounds and facilities which enhance our provision. Our location within the Lake District National Park – a World Heritage Site - enables us to extend our curriculum in a unique way; we provide learning experiences in the outdoors that challenge and inspire.

Our school excels at competitive and participative sport. Our children enjoy a rich and high quality physical education curriculum routinely participating in a range of team games, athletics, tennis, dance, gymnastics and swimming; each year even our youngest children have weekly swimming lessons, with a qualified teacher in our outdoor, heated school pool.

The arts, our community and cultural projects are important to us. A whole school approach is adopted for ‘special’ times or events in the year. This unites our whole school for the mutual benefit of all.

All staff work co-operatively for the good of the pupils whose progression is secured through regular evaluation and assessment. Where appropriate and practicable this is recorded in relevant and detailed records. The headteacher, staff and governors work in partnership with parents to provide the best education for all the children.

The successful development of the whole curriculum is dependent upon the resources available, commitment and quality of the teaching staff, teachers and teaching assistants. The curriculum is split into units of work and delivered either as a discrete subject or as part of a ‘theme’, ‘area of learning’ or ‘topic’ in a cross curricular approach.

We use 'Jolly Phonics' for the teaching of Phonics and a wide variety of published reading schemes and books to support the teaching of reading. Our children learn this key skill early in their school career and this ability is consolidated and developed as they progress through school.

Our Curriculum Progress Grids

These grids provide a detailed overview of our curriculum and how it progresses as children journey through our school. In these summary documents you will find;

Our Values - for each subject area we have selected some of our core Christian values that complement the subject area. We believe that through our teaching of the subject we can exemplify the meaning of that particular value and how it applies to our school. For example, in Geography we better understand the value of 'friendship' by learning about different environments and places around the world where our friends (of the future?) might live or work.

Subject Statements - for each phase of the learning journey through school we have summarised how learning and teaching work in that subject.

The National Curriculum - Purpose of Study, Subject Aims and Subject Content; the Government's statutory requirements for teaching in each subject.

Topic Progression Grid - an overview of the topics, projects and areas studied across the school from EYFS to Year 6.

Subject Progression Grid - a summary of the skills, knowledge and concepts taught in each year group as children progress through the school on their learning journey.

Naturally, this whole school guidance is used by teachers and subject leaders to plan units of learning in greater amounts of detail that become living lessons in the classroom. These progression grids are reviewed by subject leaders and staff on a routine basis.