Curriculum Intent

At St Martin’s Church of England Primary School, we teach a curriculum that is exciting, fun and imaginative. You can visit any of our classrooms and find children who are engaged in thinking, questioning and learning. We have a long tradition of providing a rich curriculum where sport and art have a prominent place.

 

In order for our pupils to be well-prepared for the next phase of their education, we believe our curriculum and its implementation must develop pupils who are enquiring, resilient, independent and have high aspirations. Alongside these qualities needed for academic success, our Christian values pervade our approach, so developing a sense of love, wisdom compassion, forgiveness, perseverance and faith and endeavour are just as important.

 

At St Martin’s Church of England Primary School, it is our underlying belief that every child should feel valued and experience the feeling of success in a wide range of curriculum areas. We believe that through the curriculum we can impact on what is in children’s head and how they feel about themselves, so that they feel clever, confident and ready to tackle any challenge they may face.

 

We have designed, organised and planned our curriculum to ensure every child receives an appropriate mix of academic and personal development which means that in practice our curriculum places equal importance on core and foundation subjects.

At St Martin’s Church of England Primary School, we place high priority on ensuring children’s physical and mental wellbeing are met. We understand that children will not be successful learners unless they are emotionally secure, therefore we carefully design our curriculum and adopt a flexible approach to timetabling to ensure that we can meet and respond to any issues which may arise. Children’s physical and mental wellbeing are as valued and important as academic development.

 

We carefully monitor children’s progress with their personal development and our well planned and thoughtful approach to SMSC helps to ensure that every child is well cared for and supported.

 

Our balanced approach to the curriculum is not at the expense of high standards in core subject areas. High standards and enabling children to reach national expectations and above is of vital importance if they are to succeed at the next stage of their education and go on to achieve full and happy lives and careers.

 

Our full and rich curriculum, with its excellent range of experiences, ensures that every pupil at St Martin’s Church of England Primary School makes good progress both academically and personally. Our unique curriculum ensures that every child is given the opportunity to shine and flourish.

 

Our local area provides a fantastic resource for teaching our curriculum. By the time our pupils leave us we aim for them to have attended Beach School, explored Canterbury Cathedral, explored the local Royal Military Canal and understand why Folkestone and Hythe are so important to a local history. We also expect our children to have a good understanding of history, culture and geography beyond St Martin’s Church of England Primary School to enable them to have a wider understanding of the world; opportunities to visit our capital city, London, is greatly encouraged. Environmental issues very much underpin day to day life at St Martin’s Church of England Primary School. Children care considerably deeply about their environment and champion change.

We aim for our curriculum to be relevant to each child in the school, regardless of their age, gender, individual circumstances or academic ability. We think carefully about how curriculum skills develop as a child grows older, and the key knowledge they need to learn at each stage. Subject leaders take responsibility for overseeing this. The content of each subject is sequential, building on prior learning. Alongside this, we intend the implementation of our curriculum to have some fluidity – this means that pupils with special educational needs may access the curriculum in different and often very practical ways, whilst ensuring those who attain ‘greater depth’ standards are challenged, inspired and curious. 

 

Reading has a strong focus at St Martin’s Church of England School. In addition to being taught phonics and reading skills, children are encouraged to read for enjoyment and we aim to instil a love of reading in all of our pupils. Teachers read aloud high-quality texts in every class as well as providing story clubs, library challenges and author visits.

 

High academic standards are an important goal for the school, and our focus on whole class reading, promoting maths fluency, supporting children to have a broad vocabulary and providing meaningful cross-curricular writing opportunities are some of the ways we have deliberately focused on ensuring pupils leave our school literate and numerate.

 

Charity work and supporting our local community is something that is greatly valued throughout the school. Staff and pupils alike care deeply about everybody and are passionate about working collaboratively to make a difference to other people. As a school, we raise funds for many charities as well as work collaborative with groups to make a difference. The Christian values of compassion and love underpin how the children and community of St Martin’s Church of England School live their lives.

 

Curriculum implementation

At St Martin’s Church of England Primary School, you will see a connected curriculum which allows children to make links between subjects and for knowledge to be revisited. Our curriculum is under constant review in response to developments in education, our local context and our intent for the children. The teaching of important skills is enlivened by strong school traditions, staff and local specialists and some fantastic local, national and even international resources. We carefully consider, through regular staff and smaller team meetings, how our curriculum will meet the needs of all our pupils, changing the content to focus on specific knowledge and key skills or to make the learning accessible to our pupils' range of abilities and interests.

 

At St Martin’s Church of England Primary School, you will see pupils embracing the curriculum in a variety of ways. For some, a local specialist or a school trip provokes a deep interest and pupils will choose to explore aspects of the curriculum in great depth, often at home. For others, the curriculum is simplified with very practical and physical experiences so that learning is memorable.

 

Curriculum Impact

The impact of our curriculum can be seen in the standards our children attain at the end of primary school. Children at St Martin’s Church of England Primary School make good progress and attain consistently better than national expectations at the end of key stage 2. In addition to our success in reading, writing and maths, our provision of enrichment opportunities enables pupils to achieve high standards across all areas of the curriculum. Recent examples include our bi-annual Art Gallery which enable the children to explore art in a variety of different mediums. Links with Folkestone, the Creative Quarter further developed children’s knowledge of different local artists as well as styles.

 

Our pupils also demonstrate the impact of our curriculum through their behaviour for learning; children are confident and successful learners. St Martin’s Church of England Primary School pupils feel motivated and are not afraid of ‘having a go’. They enjoy sharing their learning with each other and visitors.

 

Visitors to St Martin’s Church of England Primary School often comment on the behaviour of the children. They are caring and supportive of each other. Our pupils have a voice and know they are not too young to make a difference. The eco-friendly initiatives the school has embedded are led by the children who are very passionate about making changes to their local area as well impacting world change.

 

The impact can be seen in the way our pupils make the transition to their next school. Feedback from secondary schools that St Martin’s Church of England Primary School children attend, is overwhelmingly positive about their behaviour and attitudes to learning. Talents and interests that are discovered at St Martin’s Church of England Primary School are celebrated at prize-giving and many of our ex-pupils return to our school for work experience and share their successes.