Our Curriculum
At Holy Redeemer we plan and teach an enquiry based creative curriculum that captures our pupils’ interests and imagination, making links between different areas of their learning. Through consultation with pupils, staff and parents, we have designed our own Holy Redeemer Curriculum, which will provide the warp through which we weave the content of the National Curriculum, to provide a rich and colourful tapestry of learning for our pupils. Last year we introduced Building Learning Power, where pupils will learn about the 6 Rs that will help them to become better learners (resilience, responsibility, reciprocity, resourcefulness, reflectiveness and readiness). For KS1 we broke these learning behaviours down and worked together to create characters that the children could try to be like (wonderfully brought to life by Mrs Breakwell).
Building Learning Power
Click the image to find out the name of the character and the learning characteristic that they are helping the children to develop.
Phonics and Reading Scheme
For teaching phonics we are using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds and their associated, phase linked reading books.
RE
As a Catholic school we teach a Catholic RE curriculum, based on the Diocesan RE Scheme. All year groups learn about different aspects of the key points in the liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost as well being taught a unit on prayer, one on Creation and another on an alternative world religion. These are the other topics covered by specific year groups:
Holy Redeemer Curriculum
The new primary school curriculum came into force in September 2014 and details the subject content and skills for all the National Curriculum subjects. At Holy Redeemer, staff, pupils and parents have designed our own curriculum of things that make learning at Holy Redeemer so special and that we will weave the new content and skills through, with our curriculum forming the weft and the new statutory curriculum forming the warp. Together these strands will be woven together to form an exciting, innovative and relevant curriculum for our pupils.
Our curriculum will/will be:
- Creative and Fun – and will motivate staff and pupils
- Interconnected – exploiting real life and cross curricular links
- Enquiry-based – allowing children to explore the world around them and discover new and exciting things
- Personalised and Meaningful – to our pupils personally and within the context of our locality and the world today
- Flexible – to take advantage of pupils’ own interests and local/national/international events
- Full of higher-order thinking opportunities
- Skills-based – social and practical, talk for learning
- Rooted in Christian values – sense of community and parish, respecting and caring for others, spirituality and being the best that we can be, lead assemblies and Masses, time for prayer and reflection
- Include lots of problem solving
- Develop personal growth and independence – confidence, self-esteem, challenge, citizenship, celebrating achievement, assessment for learning, building learning power, developing life-skills, decision making, taking risks, learning from mistakes, Special person of the week, circle time, responsibility, collaboration
- Include lots of opportunities for curriculum enrichment – band, choir, art, drama, forest school, residential trips, educational visits, wide range of extra-curricular clubs, competitions, tournaments, high quality plays and productions, concerts
- Have a strong element of pupil voice – Eco Council, School Council, Prefects, Playground Buddies, Sports Council, pupil-led planning