School Ethos and Values

St Nicholas’ Primary School aims to provide a challenging and creative learning environment within which the National Curriculum and the wider curriculum can be delivered effectively.

We encourage positive attitudes to learning so that each child may be helped to achieve his or her full potential and to enjoy learning throughout their life.

The school atmosphere is happy, energetic, purposeful, secure, creative and caring. We actively promote trust and respect between children, teachers, parents and others in the life of the school.

We aim to extend children’s social, spiritual, moral, environmental and cultural awareness within the school, the community and the world outside, and are committed to providing equal opportunities for all children.

Parents, staff, pupils and governors are all essential working partners in achieving these aims.

St Nicholas’ Primary School is committed to giving children an excellent, broad-based education, and nurturing within each child enthusiastic, positive attitudes towards life-long learning.

• National Curriculum

 

 

What Children Learn

Each child will be working on the four core subjects of: mathematics (numeracy), English (literacy), science, and ICT, as well as the six foundation subjects of: design technology, history, geography, art, music, and physical education.

These are all vitally important aspects of the curriculum.

In art, music and drama, children are given first-hand experiences of observing and performing in the Arts. There are visits from outside performers, musicians and artists during the school year.

Religious education is taught from Oxfordshire County Council’s agreed syllabus. Parents are reminded that they may withdraw their children from collective Acts of Worship.

 

Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact

Curriculum Design and Coverage

St. Nick’s is a diverse and inclusive school. We have our own set of twelve values that include Inspiration and Creativity that were chosen by our own Houses of Parliament. Everyone at our school is valued. We encourage all our children to be ‘deep thinkers’ and this is reflected in our Philosophy for Children curriculum for which we have achieved the Sapere Gold Award. We are dedicated to a holistic approach and the development of the whole child and are proud of our multi use games area and our own forest school that promote physical and emotional well-being, as well as our well- being room, sensory room and sensory garden to support our children’s mental health.  We have a wide range of enrichment clubs to give children every opportunity to discover their ‘hidden talents’. We are proud of our Communication, Interaction and Resource Base and we promote good autism practice throughout the school. When children leave us, we want them to be numerate and literate and also to be decent, values-led young people with a growth mindset that will support them in the next chapter of their lives.

Intent of the St. Nick’s Curriculum

•  An enquiry-based curriculum that promotes deep thinking and accelerates learning.
• Embeds subject-rich knowledge through a cross curricular approach
• Engages children in memorable learning experiences that support, stretch and challenge them on their journey to realise their full potential
• All children have access to the full curriculum, experiences and enrichment opportunities

Implementation of the St. Nick’s Curriculum

• Lessons are sequenced so that children build on prior learning.
• Children make cross curricular links that help to embed knowledge and develop skills
• High expectations for all children in both behaviour and learning in order to achieve to the best of their ability
• Meaningful experiences that fully engage children and embed learning
• Whole school approaches in Maths and English to ensure consistency of high-quality teaching and learning

Impact of the St. Nick’s Curriculum

•  Everyone in the school is fully included, is respected and shows respect in return
• Children make at least good progress in their learning, whatever their starting point
• Children have a resilient growth mindset and a love of learning
• Children know how to identify worries about their mental health and have a tool box of strategies to support them

 

Teaching and Assessment

We provide a broad curriculum, based on children having practical experiences in a stimulating environment. Work is developed through a topic-based approach, and each year and term has specific subject areas linked to the school’s curriculum map. Schemes of Work are published for each subject area and are supported by teachers’ weekly and daily plans.

Care is also taken to ensure a balance is maintained across and between subject areas, and time allocations are made to ensure coverage of all National Curriculum subjects are in accordance with advice from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

 

At the end of each Key Stage, Level descriptions are used to assess children’s progress and achievements.

Formative and Summative Assessments are carried out throughout the year.

Age	Stage	Year	Curriculum	Assessment
3 – 5	Foundation	Reception	Foundation Stage Curriculum	Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP)
5 – 6	Key Stage 1	Year 1	National Curriculum: English, Maths, Science, DT, ICT, History, Geography, Art, Music & PE Religious Education PSHE & Citizenship	Phonics Screening
6 – 7		Year 2		National KS1 Tests and Tasks in Maths & English
7 – 8	Key Stage 2	Year 3		Optional QCA tests in Maths & English
8 – 9		Year 4		Multiplication tables checks in Maths
9 –10		Year 5
10 –11		Year 6		National KS2 Tests in Maths, English & Science

 

At St Nicholas’ Primary School, we have developed an enquiry based and cross-curricular approach to learning. We aim to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding whilst taking into account what the children want to find out. We encourage our children to become independent learners who are also able to collaborate effectively in problem solving situations. Our teachers use innovative and inspirational approaches, tailored to their class and each child’s specific needs, in order to work towards our Vision:

Live, Love, Learn and be Happy..

Our Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 classes comprise of two classes per year group, we have devised a programme of cross-curricular units.  The current medium-term plans can be found within the class pages on our website. For the teaching of phonics, we use the ‘Read, Write Inc’ programme.  We do not use a single reading scheme to teach reading but use a wide variety of books which are colour coded by difficulty. We have many books from the Oxford Reading Tree series as well as others, for example Collins Big Cat and Usborne books.