Curriculum
At St James School, the curriculum is designed to:
- provide a curriculum which is enriched and challenging where all pupils have opportunities to learn in a wide range of contexts
- provide opportunities for all pupils to develop high levels of literacy and numeracy skills which are fundamental for success in adult life
- broaden pupils’ horizons through a range of spiritual, moral, social and cultural opportunities
- ensure that all pupils are able to thrive, develop as healthy individuals and understand how to stay safe
- develop a strength of character and resilience that will help pupils to overcome the challenges they are likely to encounter in adult life
- allow pupils to become creative and critical thinkers
- provide an appropriate range of opportunities and experiences to allow pupils to succeed in the next stage in their education
Through our teaching, we aim to:
- enable pupils to become confident, resourceful, enquiring and independent learners
- foster pupil's self-esteem and help them to build positive relationships with others
- develop pupil's self-respect, encourage them to understand the ideas, attitudes and values of others and teach them to respect other people's feelings
- show respect for a diverse range of cultures and develop positive attitudes towards others
- enable pupils to understand their local community, and help them feel valued as part of it
- help pupils grow into reliable, independent and positive citizens
Learning opportunities and lessons adopt the following principles:
- teaching builds on previous learning - recall and retention tasks are a consistent feature of all lessons
- pupils will understand the context of their learning - the 'big picture'
- learning objectives and challenges will be explained explicitly so that pupils understand what they are aiming to achieve
- a range of learning styles, tasks and activities will be provided for pupils
- pupils will have opportunities to regularly review what they have learnt
- 'live marking' in lessons allows teaching staff to offer continuous feedback and improvements/next steps
- success in learning will be celebrated!
Pupils are given opportunities to learn in different ways - these include:
- investigation and problem-solving
- research and discovery
- collaborative partner/group work
- independent work
- whole-class work
- asking and answering questions
- use of ICT
- fieldwork and visits to places of educational interest
- creative activities
- watching video/film clips and responding to musical or recorded material
- debates, role-plays and oral presentations
If parents, carers or other members of the public would like to find out more about the curriculum which our school follows, please feel free to speak to your child's class teacher or organise a meeting with a member of the senior leadership team through the school office. Further information on the aims and objectives can be found on the National Curriculum website.