About Us /

Ethos, Aims, Values and Organisation

 

Our Mission
Our Aims
Curriculum Intent Statement
Our Pupils
Our Staff
High Standard Of Pastoral Care
Pupil Behaviour and Presentation
Teaching and Promoting British Values

Our Mission

LOVE GOD, LOVE LEARNING, LOVE ST. MARY’S

At St. Mary’s we all aim to build a community based on the love of God and each other where we recognise that all children are precious and unique. We celebrate the special talents that each person brings to our school and work in partnership with home, parish and the wider community to help the children grow in the Catholic faith. We provide a happy, secure learning environment and a rich curriculum through which we encourage all our children to fulfil their God–given potential.


Our Aims 

  • To develop the whole child and encourage in them a love of God and of each other to help them to live and grow in the Catholic faith.
  • To recognise that all children are unique and precious so we strive to meet their individual needs and develop their gifts and talents to enable them to reach their potential.
  • To offer a broad, balanced curriculum which is relevant to our school community and  in line with the national curriculum enriched by a wide range of  learning experiences.
  • To work in partnership with parents and families to bring out the highest standard possible in each child.
  • To continually strengthen relations between home, school, parish and the wider community.
  • To provide a happy, safe, secure learning environment where children are inspired with a love of learning and a determination to achieve to the best of their ability.
  • To make St. Mary’s a place of enjoyment where individual and team effort are valued and success is celebrated

Curriculum Intent Statement

Our Curriculum Intent

At St. Mary’s, our curriculum has been designed to inspire children to achieve their God-given potential. Our curriculum is broad, balanced and relevant and offers pupils the opportunity to grow as individuals as well as successful learners. As a Catholic School, the teachings of the Gospels lie at the heart of all we do. Pupils are taught to treat each other with kindness and respect. We aim to ensure that pupils enjoy their lessons and are well prepared for the next stage of their education. We offer our pupils a range of experiences which are designed to build resilience, confidence and self-esteem both in the classroom and through our curriculum enrichment programme. We recognise that pupils should be challenged in their learning; learning from failures as well as celebrating success. Our curriculum is designed to enable pupils to develop their interpersonal skills, creativity and independence. It is our intention that pupils leave St. Mary’s with a sense of belonging to a community where they have developed confidence and skills to make informed decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and ultimately become lifelong learners.

Aims of our Curriculum

For all pupils to:

  • Become fluent and confident readers and to develop an appreciation and love of Readingwhilst gaining knowledge across the curriculum.
  • Use excellent basic skillsacross the curriculum including Reading, writing and mathematics.
  • Develop a sense of morality, respect and community.
  • Be excited by the curriculumand want to learn.
  • Retain key knowledgein all curriculum areas.
  • Become independent, resilient and divergent learners so they are ready for secondary school (and beyond).
  • Be challengedand make progress across all areas of the curriculum (including disadvantaged pupils and those with a special need and/or disability).
  • Have a broad and lasting knowledge of subject specific vocabulary.
  • Have a wide range of life experiences that enhance their learning (including trips and extra-curricular activities).

Rationale for our Curriculum Design

  • We recognise the importance of Readingacross the curriculum and its impact on the future success of pupils. Our children are taught to read confidently, fluently and with a good understanding. Pupils are encouraged to develop a habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information through daily practice and whole school activities. Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and real texts are used to introduce topics across different subject areas including history, geography and science.
  • In KS1 and KS2 each subject is taught as a discrete unit of work. However, we have designed our curriculum to ensure that links between different subjects are made. This creates curriculum cohesion and enables pupils to link their learning appropriately. There is a focus on high quality writingand pupils use mathematics and information technology skills across different subject areas.
  • As a Catholic school, we have designed a curriculum that teaches pupils morality, respectand a sense of community. Not only through our religious education and PSHE teaching but across the whole curriculum through topics such as ‘how is our country changing’, ‘where does our stuff come from’ and ‘what is life like in the Amazon’.
  • Our pupils have told us (through pupil interviews) that they learn best when they enjoy learning. We have planned our curriculum to include a range of exciting and pupil-motivating activities, avoiding an over-use of worksheets.
  • Whole school monitoring has shown that our pupils often forget key knowledge that they have been taught (particularly in the case of foundation subjects) and so we have planned a curriculum that is knowledge-rich. Changes to the National Curriculum have enabled us to teach fewer topics in more depth concentrating on the key knowledge that we want children to remember. There is a frequent repetition of content to help pupils acquire this core knowledge. Our curriculum provides masteryof key knowledge. Our Maths curriculum, for example, provides opportunities for pupils to practise and consolidate their learning, master learning objectives by developing a deeper understanding and to apply their knowledge in greater depth. There are opportunities for pupils who do not master learning objectives to repeat work before moving on.
  • We want our pupils to become independent, resilient and divergentlearners so they are ready for secondary school (and beyond). Our curriculum focuses on a metacognitive style of learning including activities that encourage pupils to reflect on how they think and strategies they can use to apply their knowledge. This includes explicitly teaching strategies for how to plan, organise knowledge and monitor tasks. We have developed a ‘growth mindsets’ culture throughout our school teaching pupils to ‘have a go’, to use a different strategy if they get stuck, to seek peer support and to learn from their mistakes.
  • Our aim is that all pupils make good progressacross all areas of the curriculum (including disadvantaged pupils and those with a special need and/or disability). There is a sequencing of subject-specific concepts based on what we expect pupils to know at each particular stage ensuring challenge. We are an inclusive school and we aim to ensure curriculum access for all, including disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.
  • Many of our pupils start school with a very limited vocabulary (as evidenced by our Early Years baseline assessments) and our disadvantaged pupils often have gaps in their vocabulary. Our curriculum has been developed to introduce/explore new vocabulary and activities have been planned to ensure that pupils get the opportunity to apply and revisit this new knowledge.
  • Not all of our children (including some of our disadvantaged pupils) have the opportunity to develop their life experiencesoutside of school. Our curriculum considers the local context and it is enriched with local trips, workshops and visits linked to curriculum areas (please see the links identified on our Curriculum Enrichment activities for each year group).

Our Values

Gospel Values

The values that guide and inspire us in our daily life at St Mary’s are those given to us in the Gospels. The core Gospel values are based on the Beattitudes.

 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The poor in spirit are those who know that they need God’s help every day in order to make good choices.

 

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The meek are those who are thoughtful and want to help people who are in need of love and kindness.

 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

We mourn when we have been very upset by what someone has done to us. Also, we mourn when we are very sorry because we have hurt someone.

 

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Blessed are those willing to forgive those who hurt them.

 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteous, for they shall be satisfied.”

Blessed are those who tell the truth and stand up for what is right.

 

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

The pure in heart are those who try to make time for God in their lives.

 

“Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

They are those who suffer and are made fun of because they believe in God.

 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

Peacemakers are those who believe each person is precious; those who protect others from bullying.

 


British Values at St. Mary’s

British Values

British values have evolved from our Christian tradition and have been most recently defined as

  • Democracy
  • The Rule of Law
  • Individual Liberty
  • Mutual Respect and Tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

Please find our British Values policy on the school policies page.