Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School Vision

Our curriculum stems from our Mission Statement: ‘with the love of God our dreams and ambitions come true’ and has been designed to reflect that life at Sacred Heart is rich, varied, inclusive, exciting, challenging and inspiring. Our broad and balanced curriculum promotes pupil’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. It has been co-designed by staff and children using the arts and our rich cultural heritage to enrich the teaching and learning which reflects the distinctive beliefs, values and stories of our community, helping pupils to be creative and make full use of their gifts. Our balanced approach to the curriculum is not at the expense of high standards in core subject areas. With its excellent range of experiences, our exciting curriculum ensures that every pupil at Sacred Heart makes excellent progress both academically and personally. 

Our families are from a rich, varied and multi-cultural community and together, we will build our children’s aspirations demonstrating possibilities for their future lives. Our gospel values underpin all that we do; we promote a sense of self-worth through an understanding that each one of us is precious to God.  High expectations in speech, language and communication strengthen the children’s ability to learn at a deeper level, allowing them to articulate their learning; demonstrating quality thinking and application of skills and knowledge. Physical and mental wellbeing are highlighted within our curriculum design allowing children opportunities to exhibit spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding. All of our children will access all of the curriculum. 

Our curriculum is designed to:

• Develop creative individuals who collaborate and co-operate and can solve problems seeing failure as an opportunity to learn.

• Develop pupils who care about their role as part of a family, community and the wider world; encouraging them to feel part of, and to contribute positively to fundamental World values.

• Ensure all pupils have high aspirations.

• Develop a love of learning for all pupils

• Develop children to be proud of who they are and what they do

• Develop children to be active, creative contributors – we will promote kindness & instil empathy

• Give equal opportunities – removing barriers to learning, regardless of starting points.

• Be happy, enthusiastic and reflective learners who take an active part in lessons

• Think creatively, engage in problem solving and develop their resilience

• To develop an awareness of their own and others religious and spiritual development

• To become responsible, rights-respecting and caring citizens who appreciate diversity and make a positive contribution to our school and wider community

• To develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in all areas to enable them to make rapid progress

In order to allow the children to fully develop these aptitudes, language is a key focus for us, both to develop the children’s communication abilities, and also to provide them with the rich and specific vocabulary from across the curriculum that underpins their knowledge and understanding, further enhancing their subject specific knowledge and understanding.

We teach the National curriculum using a progressive and well sequenced skills and knowledge based approach, which is enhanced by a carefully planned range of educational visits, memorable learning experiences which may include theme days or weeks, specialist teachers and visitors to school.  We use a range of teaching strategies that take into account the ways in which children learn in order to foster engagement, motivation and creativity.

Our curriculum alongside the National Curriculum promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils and prepares them for the opportunities and experiences of later life.

Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School Aims

We aim:

• To be an inclusive school: all aspects of our work will ensure that all learners are given equality of opportunity and treated fairly.

• To promote and achieve high standards for all by providing teaching and learning of the highest quality to every child.

• To treat learners as individuals and to differentiate teaching and learning to take account of their individual needs and ensure every child maximises their learning and progress.

• To provide for learners’ physical, mental, social, spiritual, moral and cultural needs.

• To provide for learners’ care, health and safety.

• To ensure that all learners benefit from a rich, broad, balanced curriculum. It will be taught in an interesting, exciting and imaginative manner with lots of opportunities for first-hand experience.

• To teach basic skills and core subjects, giving great emphasis to the foundation subjects so that children can make links and apply their learning.

• To make connections between subjects and to apply basic skills across the curriculum.

• To enliven and enrich the curriculum by visits, visitors, and extensive use of the environment.

• To give responsibility to learners and develop their self-confidence by contributing to the community and be proud of who they are.

•  To make Governors, parents/ carers and the wider community equal partners with the school and to involve them in the evaluation of its success.

• To promote a welcoming, calm and inspirational environment where learners feel secure.

• To build a school where excellent behaviour is expected.

• To make this school a place of enjoyment and joy– a place where success is celebrated.

The Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School Pledge

In our school, we put Christ and the teachings of the Catholic Church at the centre and the children at the heart of all that we do. We are a community where the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development form the roots from which grow our values, motivation and aspirations that inform our choices and actions as people.

At Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, we want our children to experience the joy of discovery; to solve problems; to be creative in every subject area. To recognise and develop each child’s talents. Most of all, we strive to develop their self-confidence and resilience so that they grow into proud, kind, respectful and aspirational adults who care for each other, themselves and their world.

We will encourage our children to set high targets for themselves and teach them how to use set-backs to become even better. We believe that, when there is joy and inspiration in what children are doing, they foster a lifelong love of learning.

Religious Education, our Catholic Ethos, English and Maths will be the backbone of our pupils’ success in learning but not the only focus. All subject areas will be valued and promoted.

We will build on our strengths to serve the needs of our children using the skills of everyone in the school. Our school will drive its own improvement; set its own challenging targets and recognise that, for the sake of our children, we can always do better.

Learning will be focused on individual pupil’s needs and abilities and we will develop assessment for learning to enable ‘knowledge about individuals’ to inform the way they are taught and learn.

Teachers and classroom assistants will provide a tailored approach to support all learners and we will provide extra support to the learners that need it most.

We will build a partnership with parents by providing a wealth of information and by knitting the school into the fabric of their community.

The Headteacher and Governors will devise and monitor effective systems for quality teaching and learning.

Our school will promote high standards of behaviour by modelling and teaching positive behaviour to all learners and allowing the time and space that they need to think about their choices.