Curriculum Intent

At Our Lady Star of the Sea, our curriculum is bespoke to the context of our school and community. We embrace neurodiversity and inclusive practice. We strive to ensure all aspects of our curriculum are fully accessible to any pupil with a physical or sensory disability and comply with our statutory responsibilities regarding the Equalities Act 2010. We provide a wide ranging, engaging and humanity rich curriculum that is relevant for all of our children. Our curriculum develops the skills, knowledge and cultural capital our pupils need to succeed in life and be educated, aspirational and compassionate citizens. Our curriculum helps pupils to take pride in themselves, aspire to achieve their best and empower our pupils to ignite possibilities to make a difference in the wider world by using their voice.

We strive to develop the whole child in a holistic approach with a focus on mental health and wellbeing. For pupils to engage and invest in learning, they must be able to manage their emotions and regulate. Pupils at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Primary School are encouraged to be hard working, resilient, good communicators, emotionally intelligent, confident and aspirational in order to be good citizens and to have positive life-skills.

As a Voice 21 school,  we strive to create an oracy rich community where every member has the skills to communicate effectively, believes they have a voice and feels valued and listened to. We embed steps to thinking to deepen understanding and develop autonomy as part of our journey to become a Thinking School.

 As children progress through the school, the expectation for the depth and breadth of their learning is increased. Pupils will engage in skills of a similar nature, but at a higher level of understanding leading to a mastery approach to learning.

Learning based on the local environment and educational visits further afield makes learning ‘come alive’ for children. 

As a Catholic school, RE is a core part of our curriculum where 10% of our teaching time is dedicated to this.

Star Pupil

At Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Primary School, through our curriculum we strive for all our pupils to be 'Star Pupils.' Our Star Learner Profile was collaborated with staff and drives our day to day practice in everything we do, through our mission, star core values and curriculum.

We aspire for all our children to be: caring, honest, respectful, independent, resilient, kind, hard-working, polite, a good communicator, emotionally intelligent and happy; so when our children leave us at the end of Y6, they are 'secondary ready,' children who take pride in themselves, their environment, aspire to achieve and are confident to make a difference. 

Implementation

The teaching of our curriculum is underpinned through the Great Teaching Toolkit, 2020. We endeavour to be consistent in our approach to create a supportive environment for pupils to learn, to maximise opportunities for pupils to learn through adaptive teaching and Voice 21 talk tactics. We activate hard thinking through our thinking schools strategies and Q Matrix questioning. Our lessons are planned in line with Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. We are consistent in our teaching and always refer to guidance from our Recipe to Teaching Toolkit.

We are passionate about inclusion. Our classroom environments support inclusive practice and teachers adapt their teaching. We teach our children strategies to regulate their emotions and every classroom has a reflection space which can be accessed when needed.

The curriculum at OLSS School is determined by the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, the National Curriculum, the Archdiocese guidelines for Religious Education and the school’s individual subject policies. Subjects are carefully planned, structured and sequenced by our subject leaders to ensure that knowledge  and skills build on what has been taught before. Our curriculum is structured to help pupils embed key concepts into their long-term memory and apply them fluently across the curriculum.

Impact

At Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Primary School, pupil's achievement and progress is monitored through formative and summative assessments which enables teachers to plan next steps. Retrieval practice through Low-stake quizzes consolidate pupils' memory and recall. Teachers provide next steps feedback for pupils to move learning forward. Senior Leaders and subject leaders systematically monitor the impact of the curriculum through book monitoring, pupil voice and learning walks. The impact of the curriculum is reviewed regularly and progress is measured against end of year outcomes.