Our Curriculum | St Pius X Catholic Primary School

Curriculum Intent:

At St. Pius X we teach the full national curriculum, which provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge that they need to be an educated citizen. The St. Pius X curriculum is thematic in design, enabling children to make sense of what is taught, through carefully planned sequences of learning, which are relevant to the children and provide a wide range of rich, first-hand learning experiences, which exploits the educational opportunities in Middlesbrough and beyond. The curriculum introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said; and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement. The thematic links allow children to children to transfer their knowledge into new situations and apply it to new contexts.

If you would like more information on our curriculum or request a paper copy please see Reception.

	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Foundation Stage	Year A Once upon a time Year B Into the woods	Year A Growing Year B People and communities	Year A Pirates Year B Life on land and sea
Year 1	Me and My World	Animals	The Great Explorers
Year 2	Fire	Food	The seaside
Year 3	WW2	The Egyptians	The Romans
Year 4	Stone Age	Ancient Greece	The Tudors
Year 5	The Mayans	Anglo Saxons/Vikings	Britain since 1948
Year 6	Victorians	Disappearing World	United in Diversity

“The stimulating and rich experiences adults make available to pupils are manifest in the high-quality displays throughout the school!” (Philip Riozzi, Her Majesty’s Inspector)

Maths

English

EYFS

Reading
Science

Foundation Subjects

Mathematics

Maths is taught using the Power Maths scheme, perfectly aligned with the WhiteRose framework to ensure coverage and progression. Power Maths is a whole-class mastery programme designed to spark curiosity and excitement and help our children to nurture confidence in maths. Problems are presented in a variety of ways to enable children to gain a deeper understanding of a mathematical concept not simply to learn the mechanics of a calculation. Children are encouraged to make mistakes, from here they are able to further deepen their understanding by identifying the misconception and proving how they have got to this answer. Year 1 and 2 use ‘Wake Up Shake Up’ to recall multiplication facts in a fun way. Years 3-6 use Timestable Rockstars to help develop their fluency of times tables in a fun and competitive way. Arithmetic is another important aspect of mathematics, children must be confident to use mental maths strategies and formal written methods. We believe that in order for children to be confident mathematicians they must have a sound understanding of a concept supported through concrete and pictorial approaches before becoming more secure in abstract working, and be able to explain their working with increasingly accurate and concise explanations.

English

At St. Pius X RC Primary School English is taught, (where possible) within the topics studied. As part of their learning in English children will study the following genres:

Stories with familiar settings
Traditional stories
Extended stories
Recounts
Information texts
Explanations
Non-chronological reports
Persuasion
Auto/biographical writing
Instructions
Poetry

Writing Progression

EYFS

What is the EYFS curriculum?

The Development Matters document explains exactly what the children have to achieve and how we can all work together to help children to do so Click here to view full document.

The EYFS curriculum is separated into seven areas of learning. The children learn through play to develop their skills in all seven areas.

Practitioners working with the youngest children in Nursery will focus strongly on the three prime areas, which are the basis for successful learning in the other four specific areas. The three prime areas reflect the key skills and capacities all children need to develop and learn effectively, and become ready for school. The balance will shift towards a more equal focus on all areas of learning as the children move through the Early Years and grow in confidence and ability within the three prime areas.

The Prime areas are:

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development

The specific areas are:

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design

St Pius X EYFS Curriculum

We believe that children have a large role to play in their learning. They have a role in planning what they learn about and what the continuous provision will include. The children have opportunities in their key worker groups to discuss what they have learnt and experienced in the setting and how they can develop their learning further.

Thematic work ensures that play is purposeful. The children’s learning is based around topics linked to their interests and to the seasons and opportunities around us. We ensure that the classroom environments are stimulating and interesting. The resources are labelled and organised well and changed to ensure that the continuous provision is engaging. We place a high value on open ended questioning, ensuring that every child is challenged and moved forward in their learning.

We offer opportunities to develop an understanding of the world around them through thematic work, outdoor play and visits to other places. We want the children to have new and different experiences from home.

We value our parent partnerships at St Pius X. The parents regularly attend Stay and Play sessions, trips, parent’s evenings, new starters meetings and Reception starters meetings. These sessions ensure that parents and staff can share key information about the children’s learning.

"The relatively new early years leader has improved provision substantially... and adults intervene in children's learning to make it more challenging." (Philip Riozzi, Her Majesty's Inspector)

The RE Curriculum

Here at St Pius X we follow the ‘Come and See’ scheme of work. The Cathecism of the Catholic Church addresses the search for meaning in life. God’s initiative in Revelation who comes to meet us and respond in faith. This pattern guides the structure of the ‘Come and See’ programme and informs the process of each topic, opened through, Explore, Reveal and Respond.

This document outlines the topics your children will cover in each year group.

Reading

Reading is obviously recognised as an essential element of all learning. We aim to teach the skills of reading and to foster a lifelong love of language. There is balance of non-fiction and fiction books and children are expected to read a range of genres. Children bring books home from their earliest days in school. We view the education of children as a partnership with parents and ask them to read with their children as often as possible. Early reading books are levelled carefully and children work systematically through each level at their own pace. All of the children have access to the school library and a collection of home loan books where they can borrow books to bring home and share. Older children are encouraged to bring in their books from home.

Reading Schemes in School:

Bug Club
Oxford Reading Tree
Ginn
Rigby Rockets

We also include a large selection of non scheme books within the levels and within each class children have access to high quality texts linked to their current topic.

What is phonics?

Phonics is the system of ‘blending’ sounds together to read, and ‘segmenting’ sounds to spell. They are both complimentary and interlinking skills that are taught together. You may hear your children use some vocabulary that you are not familiar with that they have learnt in their phonics lessons.

A phoneme Is the smallest unit of sound that we use in the English language. A phoneme can be made up of one letter as in the alphabet sounds – s, a, t, p, i, n etc, or two letters (a digraph) as in sh, ch, th, ay, ar, or three letters (trigraphs) as in air, ear, ure. Phonemes can not be broken down into separate sounds.

A grapheme Is the way we spell a phoneme. A phoneme may have only one grapheme for example ‘b’. Or may have several different spellings –for example or can be spelt ‘or’ in torn, ‘aw’ in claw, ‘au’ in naughty or ore in more. The children will initially be introduced to one common grapheme for each phoneme, but as they progress through the school they will taught the less common spelling alternatives and encouraged to try and choose the correct grapheme for a particular word they are trying to spell.

Consonant blends Are made up of two or three phonemes blended together quite quickly as we learn to read. Examples are sc, sm, bl, pr, str

Short Vowel Sounds Are the vowels saying their sound as ‘a’ in c a t.

Long Vowel Sounds Are the vowels saying their name as ‘ay’ in day, ‘oa’ in boat or ‘igh’ in night.

How do we teach Phonics at our school?

To teach phonics we primarily follow the Letters and Sounds Scheme. Phonics lessons are taught daily in KS1 and Foundation Stage. We use a mixture of different resources and teaching styles to engage and motivate the children, including magnetic boards and letters, whiteboards and pens, games, flashcards based on the ‘Jolly Phonics’ phonics scheme

We have phonic based guided reading books for teachers to use with groups when teaching reading and there are some phonic based home readers in all book boxes.

How can you help your child?

In Foundation Stage the follow up sheets will be sent home to consolidate learning in class. It will be useful to revise the phonemes your child has learnt that week at school and also later to go over some from previous weeks to reinforce their learning. It is also very beneficial to point out some phonemes when reading at home with your child, particularly those recently learnt. Key words will be sent home as cards in Foundation Stage and linked to the stages in the reading scheme. Please help your child practise recognition of these as this is another important skill to master.

Click here to go to the Jolly Phonics website where there is a parents’ guide to phonics showing the articulation of phonemes (vowels and consonants).

Reading Progression