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St Mark’s V.A. Church in Wales Primary School Curriculum Summary
Our curriculum has been co-constructed through engaging with all stakeholders and will meet the following requirements:
The Four Purposes
The four purposes are the starting point and aspiration for our school curriculum design. Our school aims to support our learners to become:
· ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives
· enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and
work
· ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world
· healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued
members of society
Our Vision
St Mark’s School motto is ‘Learning, playing, praying and growing together, to become the best that we can be.’
Our vision is that learners will be healthy and confident life-long learners, who participate in and contribute to the global world and practise the core values of the school. Our learners will develop confidence in their identities, as they explore, demonstrate, make decisions, and value skills and knowledge that will support them to be creative, ethical, capable and informed citizens of their communities.
RVE (Religion, Values and Ethics) and Our Church School Values
As a Voluntary Aided Church in Wales Primary School our RVE (Religion, Values and Ethics) Curriculum is at the heart of our vision.
Our School Rules underpin our values: Be Safe; Be Respectful; Be Ready
Sub lenses of RVE and linked values:
1. Search for meaning and purpose
How people respond to the deeper questions of life, in order to understand the human condition.
Values: Perseverance and Hopefulness – developing independence and openness and a sense of Peace and Spirituality
2. The natural world and living things
How and why people show concern and responsibility for the world and experience awe and wonder in nature.
Values: Awe and Wonder; Care and Responsibility; Creativity; Thankfulness and Gratitude
3. Values and ethics
How and why people make moral choices and how this influences their actions.
Values: Honesty, Truthfulness, Justice and Forgiveness – developing discernment and ‘a voice’
4. Identity and belonging
What makes us who we are as people, communities and citizens living in a diverse world.
Values: Friendship and Cooperation, Generosity and Service – developing Connections and Belonging
5. Authority and influence
How and why different types of authority influence people’s lives.
Values: Justice, Trust and Wisdom - developing Citizenship, Engagement and Action
6. Relationships and responsibility
How people live together and why developing healthy relationships is important.
Values: Compassion, Love and Unity – developing Empathy and Patience, Boundaries and Safety
7. The journey of life
What people experience as part of the journey of life and how these experiences are acknowledged.
Values: Appreciation, Freedom; Courage and ‘Cynefin’
Our Inclusive Curriculum
Our curriculum will aim to support all learners to become the best that they can be. We have high aspirations for all learners. As a school we have considered how all learners will be supported to realise the four purposes and to make progress, not only in learning, but also in dispositions and attitudes towards learning. We have considered our Universal Provision alongside bespoke ALN provision to decide how we will meet the needs of different groups of learners.
Our aims for all:
•Remove barriers to learning and raise aspirations
•Provide equity and bespoke support to meet individual needs
•Enable learners to become emotionally equipped with developing empathy
•To become independent lifelong learners, who have understanding and skills to improve their own learning
•To know and understand their rights and how they can safely achieve what they need
Our Bespoke Approach
In developing our curriculum, we looked at the needs of our children, in our own particular context, and responded in a three-fold approach.
As children begin their journey in St Marks in the Early Years our curriculum will offer: a high level of interaction; a play based, child led approach; developing communication focus; rich experiences to develop creativity, and a purposeful environment, where skills, including developing fine and gross motor skills, will be a priority.
As children develop their confidence, speech and language skills and aptitudes to learning, so in the second phase there will be more focus on: building on foundations; developing growing independence; nurturing basic skills; creatively challenging; being physically active and providing bespoke support where needed.
As learners secure their basic skills, and become more competent, with growing independence, learning becomes multidisciplinary. Learners can experience enhanced decision making, applying skills and reflecting. Our aim is to enable our learners to lead their learning, embedding and extending skills, with flexibility and creativity, in an ever-changing world.
The Statements of What Matters
Our curriculum will provide opportunities and experiences to develop the key concepts, knowledge and skills as described in the statements of what matters and in line with the Statements of What Matters Code.
Areas of Learning and Experience
Our curriculum will provide learning experiences through the 6 AoLEs of:
· Languages, Literacy and Communication
· Expressive Arts
· Science and Technology
· Humanities
· Maths and Numeracy
· Health and Wellbeing
Each AoLE has equal status within our curriculum design.
Learning, Progression and Assessment
Our curriculum will support learning through designing learning opportunities that draw upon the pedagogical principles.
Our curriculum, supported by effective teaching and learning enables learners to make meaningful progress. Over time our learners will develop and improve their skills and knowledge. Our curriculum focuses on understanding what it means to make progress in a given area or discipline, and how learners should deepen and broaden their knowledge and understanding, skills and capacities, and attributes and dispositions and is informed by the Progression Code. This in turn supports our approach to assessment, the purpose of which is to inform planning for future learning. Assessment will be embedded as an intrinsic part of learning and teaching. All learners will be assessed on entry to the school and planning for progress uses a wide range of assessment information, including our bespoke Writing Milestones, Numeracy Milestones and Digital Competency Framework Milestones, which support progress at an individual level.
Welsh, English and International Languages
School learning will take place in English and Welsh from the early years onwards. We also include early experiences and opportunities in French as children progress through the school.
Cross curricular skills
Our curriculum will develop the mandatory cross-curricular skills of literacy, numeracy and digital competence. Our curriculum will enable learners to develop competence and capability in these skills and to extend and apply them across all Areas. Learners will be given opportunities across the curriculum to:
• develop listening, reading, speaking and writing skills
• be able to use numbers and solve problems in real-life situations
• be confident users of a range of technologies to help them function and communicate effectively and make sense of the world.
UNCRC / UNCPRD
Our school will promote knowledge and understanding of Part 1 of the UNCRC, and of the UNCRPD, among those who provide teaching and learning.
Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals)
Our curriculum is designed to developing attitudes and dispositions to incorporate the principles of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. We recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and improve economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
CWRE
Our curriculum will incorporate careers and work-related experiences for all of our learners, so that they have a growing picture of ‘the world of Work’ and how they may play their part in contributing to society.
RSE
Our school curriculum embraces the guidance in the RSE Code. Our RSE provision will have a positive and empowering role in our learners’ education and will play a vital role in supporting them to realise the four purposes as part of a whole-school approach. Helping learners to form and maintain a range of relationships, all based on mutual trust and respect, is the foundation of RSE. These relationships are critical to the development of emotional well-being, resilience and empathy.
Pupil Voice: Y Senedd
Pupil voice will continue to be a strong feature as pupils provide ideas, with growing confidence, to inform and develop provision. The wide range of rich learning experiences, which often derive from our pupils’ ideas, and are based on exciting themes, which will provide our learners with opportunities to make good progress in their skills development.
Review and refinement
Our school curriculum will be kept under review in order to respond to the outputs of professional inquiry, the changing needs of learners and social contexts and needs. The reviews will consider the views of stakeholders and will be signed off by the Governing Body. We will publish a summary of our curriculum and revise the summary if changes to the curriculum are made during the review process.
Headteacher : Heather Cale
Chair of Governors: Fr Neil Hook
Review date: July 2025
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