St Hugh's CofE Primary School

Curriculum Offer  

 (Please open the document above to see the 2022-23 curriculum offer)

School Vision Statement

‘Be the change you want to see in the World’ (Gandhi)

St. Hugh’s as a Christian family of God is aspirational, inclusive and loving.

We treat each person as a unique individual of inherent worth to support them towards academic excellence and personal growth, as they become advocates for change within society.

‘To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.’      Hebrews 11 v 1

School Mission Statement:

We aim:

• To ensure that each child achieves high standards and makes good progress in relation to prior attainment in all areas of school life.
• To provide all pupils with high quality teaching in order to achieve high quality learning, by means of broad, balanced curriculum within a framework of Christian values.
• To provide a well-resourced, high quality learning environment.
• To create a positive, inclusive school culture, in which we promote our children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, helping children towards an understanding of Christian belief and other world faiths.
• To promote an inclusive, mutually supportive learning partnership with parents and community and to encourage children to take a full role in their school community.
• To support the work of the school by effective management of finance, curriculum, resources, administration and personnel.

Curriculum Intent:

Our Curriculum has been designed to ensure that each child can ‘be the change they want to see in the World’ by offering stimulating and awe-inspiring learning experiences with Christian values and high aspirations at its heart.

It is bespoke to the needs of the pupils at St Hugh’s, not only by focussing on appropriate subject specific knowledge, skills and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum, but by modelling the virtues given to us by Christ and by developing individual and collaborative learning experiences, a sense of responsibility and challenges that take them beyond the classroom.

We are an urban school with a curriculum which responds to the needs of the learners and their interests by enhancing learning experiences and raising awareness from the local area to the national and global arenas.

We are highly ambitious for our children, irrespective of their background or academic prowess.  All staff know what their children should achieve at the end of each year and the learning is carefully planned to meet these points.    All of our pupils are provided with a rich and relevant curriculum, with enhancement activities - including those with special needs and disabilities. 

The 2022-23 curriculum has been evaluated and re-designed following training and is even more bespoke to the school focusing on key concepts and knowledge, global links and diversity.  The curriculum is blocked into learning units for science, history, geography, art and technology, to ensure emersion in learning and to support memory retention.  Children will also have weekly MFL, PE, PSHE, RE, computing lessons along with a daily act of worship and daily English and Maths lessons.  

In 2020-21 the school implemented a ‘recovery style’ approach to teaching the curriculum, focussing on rebuilding relationships, assessing and addressing gaps in learning, re-building resilience, catch-up programmes and settling the children back into routines.  The 2021-22 curriculum continued with this approach, assessing and addressing gaps in knowledge and experience caused by the pandemic. 

Curriculum Implementation:

In order to implement our curriculum, we have carefully considered how it is delivered.   From September 2022 the curriculum will be blocked for history, science, art, geography and Dt to ensure complete emersion into learning units.    Each learning unit has a knowledge mat with key vocabulary and key knowledge which is displayed in the classroom and in the children’s books.  We also try to start each topic with a hook or a ‘wow!’ start.  Children will  have weekly MFL, PE, PSHE, RE, computing lessons along with a daily act of worship and daily English and Maths lessons.  

Training and staff meetings over several years have enabled us to refine our curriculum and we continue to adapt our practice to further raise standards.  The curriculum statements are assessed and children are judged as being below, working towards, at expected and above age related expectations.  These are updated onto our school’s assessment system  and discussed at  pupil progress meetings with the SLT.  The data informs summative assessments to plan our next steps for the children.  The Early Year’s children work towards the Early Learning Goals and aim to achieve the Good Level of Development.

Subjects leaders ensure that their curriculum area has the coverage and skills needed for children to progress through as they move through school.  The curriculum is broad and balanced and carefully considers the attitudes, skills and knowledge that children will learn and our cultural capital.  We ensure that children can retain knowledge and skills long-term which support them to become lifelong learners.

Maths:

The school uses the White Rose Hub Premium maths scheme alongside Maths Shed to create a bespoke curriculum for St Hugh’s, which is in line with our school policy and reflects the core principles of CPA (concrete, pictorial, abstract) in mathematics. We also have a wide variety of resources to support pupils in their learning. The curriculum runs from EYFS through to Year 6 to ensure consistency for our pupils. Our assessment is also based on White Rose to enable a true reflection of pupils’ capabilities.

English:

Nursery to Year 2 use Read, Write, Inc. to teach phonics and RWI reading books are sent home for individual home reading along with supplementary books matched to the phonics phase of the child.  Once a pupil has completed RWI, they will move onto age related reading books and free reading. There are also several interventions and initiatives to increase reading attainment including:  Rapid Reading and targeted 1:1 reading sessions for children that may need further acceleration.

Reading ‘Gems’ are utilised in KS2. These follow a progression of skills linked to the National Curriculum for word-reading and comprehension which are taught in a consistent manner and monitored rigorously throughout the year.  From Year 3 there is also a high focus on fluency.

Writing is taught across a range of genres and matched closely to our high quality texts. Spelling is taught via the Ruth Miskin materials and common exception words/high frequency words are incorporated alongside the relevant texts. Similarly, grammar is taught explicitly within each genre, allowing for both technical and creative skills to be utilised.

RE:

The school uses the Blackburn Diocese scheme supplemented with Understanding Christianity units and picturing Christianity weeks as appropriate.

PSHE&RSE:

The school follows the Jigsaw scheme for PSHE with circle time and mindfulness sessions.  Half-termly sessions are as follows:

RSE is incorporated into this scheme.

Science:  

Science at St Hugh’s is taught through the use of the Snap Science Scheme and learning units of work.  We offer a knowledge rich curriculum which continually develops children’s working scientifically skills and creates independent learners who are able to ask and answer scientific questions about the world around them.

The science vision and principles underpin the science teaching and learning. 

https://www.st-hughs.oldham.sch.uk/oldham/primary/st-hughs/arenas/websitecontent/web/sciencevision.pdf

St Hugh’s has recently been awarded the Primary Science Quality Mark which acknowledges the hard work of both children and staff in making Science a success at St Hugh’s.

Other Curriculum areas:

Music

Children in Nursery to Year 3 receive a weekly 30 minute curriculum music session, with the teacher focusing on singing, percussion, composition and performance.  In the Nursery this is ‘Tune into Talking’ which invites parents and families to participate fortnightly.  The Reception children have Musical Beginnings.  The Year 1 and 2 classes receive curriculum music lessons and the Year 3 lessons focus on pre-wider opportunities music .  In Years 4 and 5 the children receive Wider Opportunities Brass lessons.  Those children excelling in music are invited to join the school band and on-going opportunities are extended to the Year 6 children. As an Arts Mark school the lessons focus on singing, performing and learning to play their instrument, covering all areas of the music curriculum.

PE:

Nursery to Year 6 receive Ballet and dance lessons on a Friday from the Oldham Sports Development Team.   All classes receive a weekly PE lesson from a qualified sports coach.  

KS2 children receive swimming lessons.  Year 4 for the full year and Year 3, 5 and 6 for one term. 

The school offers a wide range of extra-curricular activities, special focus days/weeks, visitors and trips to enhance the curriculum.

The Annual Early Years to Year 6 curriculum plan is available at the top of this page, this has more detail about the curriculum and details about all curriculum areas.

Curriculum Impact:

We aim to provide a curriculum enables children to be ready for the next stage in their education and make the best possible progress and achieve well.  It is vital that we build children’s confidence, self-esteem and aspirations, whilst helping each individual to develop personally and gain the skills for lifelong learning.

At St Hugh’s the children are a joy and have a love of learning.  We know that the curriculum has a positive impact due the work in books, talking to children and the quality of learning around the school.  The progress data illustrates the positive impact of the curriculum.

If you would like any more information about the school's curriculum offer or paper copies of any documentation, please email the school - info@st-hughs.oldham.sch.uk, or phone school on 0161 770 3171 and ask for Mrs Byrne.