Year Group Medium Term Plans

Intent

At St. Mark’s CE Primary, our curriculum embraces the community in which it is situated, recognising local history, heritage, geographical and business links and most importantly, the aspirations of all our children. Through our Christian Vision we teach children to be respectful, responsible and trustworthy, to be understanding and fair to others. We strive for the highest standards in both work and behaviour from the children. We promote the academic, spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of our pupils. Diversity is celebrated and equally practised. There are ‘No Outsiders’ at St Marks CE Primary. We prepare our children as future citizens; preparing them to engage and persevere as individuals, parents and workers with the awareness to accommodate economic, social and cultural change. We involve and value children’s contributions in the decision making process that impacts upon their learning, personal development and their environment. We actively promote resilience, the ‘can do’ and ‘have a go’ attitude. Encouraging all children to be highly motivated, to have self- belief and good coping skills.

Implementation

The curriculum at St. Mark’s CE is designed to be unique and to adapt to the context of the school and children’s needs. It engages all learning styles using a variety of resources, Early Years Outcomes, National Curriculum and Statutory Guidance. Our curriculum design is broad and balanced and progressively builds on skills, knowledge and conceptual understanding year on year. It enables children to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts. At St. Mark’s we have built a curriculum that prioritises improving children’s long term memory with a focus on ‘sticky knowledge’. We believe knowledge is key, you can know but not understand, but you cannot understand and not know. Our curriculum makes links across subjects, so that knowledge taught in one subject is explicitly reinforced and revisited in other subjects and in subsequent years. The curriculum has high expectations, demonstrates a breadth of vocabulary and provides enrichment opportunities. We endeavour to promote the five foundations of building character by providing all children with the opportunities to experience, sport, creativity, performing, volunteering and membership and the world of work. We want children to engage in life-long learning. Through formal and informal assessment, teachers are able to check pupils’ understanding and use this to inform their planning.

Impact

What is taught in our school is more than just the formal curriculum, rather it is about the messages pupils receive through the experience of being in St. Mark’s school. Children leave the school with a sense of belonging, where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become life-long learners. We strive to ensure that our children's attainment is in line or exceeds their potential when we consider the varied starting points of all our children. We measure this using a range of materials, whilst always considering the expectations for each year group. Through half-termly testing we assess children’s key knowledge. We use ‘Insight Tracking’ to summarise attainment for all pupils against age related expectations. By using this assessment tool, we are able to reflect on progress made and attainment against national expectations.