St Margaret’s CE Primary School 

Our Curriculum Intent

At St Margaret’s CE Primary School we want our curriculum to reflect our mission – our reason for being here. At its heart we seek a curriculum that serves the needs of the child both educationally and spiritually, a curriculum that provides deep foundations for learning and which prepares children socially and emotionally for a complex but exciting world.

We want a curriculum that is both knowledge rich, experience driven and leads to learning that equips and prepares. Children should be encouraged to think deeply and critically, follow their own interests and develop expertise in subject disciplines.

Our curriculum encourages excellence, values effort and celebrates achievement. Together, our learning is creative, enriching and relevant to today and tomorrow.

The outworking of our curriculum is simple. We want our children to be the best they can be; to reach their potential; to be true to themselves, growing in wisdom and able to make good choices now and throughout their lives. Our children respect themselves and others, are self- confident, empathetic and have inner peace and optimism for the future.

Driving our curriculum is our vision, Created to Shine!

Built upon our vision of ‘Created to shine’, our curriculum projects in Create, Discover and Explore are carefully designed and sequenced to empower each child to shine in their own unique way. Our children move beyond acquiring ‘head knowledge’ and develop ‘heart knowledge’- internalised values that guide their choices and actions. Our curriculum acts as a vehicle for teaching truths that make a positive difference in the individual lives of our children, families, community and beyond. By the time our children reach the end of their journey at St Margaret’s, our children will be distinctively different. Not only will they be equipped with strong academic foundations but they will have internalised values and character that allow them to shine in all aspects of life. 

As a school, we have carefully considered what it means for our children to truly shine. Shining encompasses qualities such as loving others, making good choices, seeking truth and wonder and being a courageous, loving leader. These attributes are mapped progressively across each year group, ensuring that pupils develop the knowledge, skills and values to embody them as they move through the school and beyond.

Therefore, projects and learning experiences are deliberately designed with ‘shining’ as the end goal. These qualities become the substantive concepts that run through the projects like a golden thread, giving purpose, authenticity and coherence to our children’s learning and most importantly refocusing it back to our school vision of being ‘Created to shine’. Each year group has clearly defined end goals that build progressively as part of the bigger picture. 

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Our curriculum draws on the National Curriculum for propositional knowledge but adds to this bank where appropriate for our children. We are mapping our procedural knowledge to develop children’s skills from Reception to Year 6.

Reading is at the heart of the curriculum so that children can unlock the door to learning at an early age.

We teach subjects through projects and discreetly where appropriate and continuously assess children’s learning and progress in order to tailor learning opportunities to meet their needs.