Curriculum

Curriculum Intent at Blandford St Mary CE Primary School 

What is a 'curriculum'?

"The curriculum is a framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education, including the knowledge and understanding to be gained at each stage (intent); for translating that framework over time into a structure and narrative, within an institutional context (implementation) and for evaluating what knowledge and understanding pupils have gained against expectations (impact / achievement)." Ofsted 2019

At Blandford St Mary, we have specifically designed our curriculum to ensure that it is enriched with engaging, purposeful and quality learning experiences which are suited to the abilities and aptitudes of each learner. 

Carefully planned opportunities helps our children grow as confident, inquisitive, independent and successful learners. We want to instill positive learning behaviours which will promote a life-long love of learning. We also want to equip our children with moral values so that they make a positive contribution to society. We seek to provide each child with the skills and knowledge to equip them for life in the 21st century through an engaging, creative and challenging curriculum.

Our curriculum intent is underpinned by our vision statement of ‘Knowing we are loved, we learn and grow to be the best that we can be,’ and our Biblical Statement of 1 Corinthians 16:14, ‘Let all that you do be done in love,’

We know from years of research that when children feel happy and loved, they feel safe and are ready to learn. 

We want our children to learn and understand a rich body of critical knowledge, skills and concepts that equip them to succeed in both today’s and tomorrow’s world, enabling them to have a positive impact on themselves and others.

We want our children to grow as unique and curious individuals with the resilience and determination to continually better themselves. Through the curriculum they will refine their ability to create, perform, author high quality work and develop positive self-esteem. We want our children to demonstrate our set of school values of love, hope, respect, perseverance and responsibility.

We follow the National Curriculum using a creative approach to planning and teaching enabling children to fully engage in topics, deepening and applying their knowledge from across all subject areas. Topics or themes vary in length from a week, such as Enterprise week, to a term. These topics aim to include as many different subject areas as possible, but where links cannot be made, subjects maybe taught separately. Maths and English is taught explicitly daily and the skills acquired in those subjects are further applied across the curriculum. 

We want our curriculum to enable every child ‘to be the best that they can be,’ creating leaders, instigators, investigators, researchers and change makers.

At Blandford St Mary Primary School all class teachers are responsible for providing a curriculum that is suitable for all pupils in the class, including those with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND) with support from the SENCo. We have high expectations for all pupils and are committed to ensuring our curriculum complies with the Equality Act 2010 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. Our inclusion statement emphasises the importance of providing an inclusive learning environment for all pupils including those with SEND. 

Blandford St Mary uses a variety of teaching approaches to create the best possible learning opportunities for all our children.  Many subjects are also supported by experiences beyond the classroom - from residential and Houses of Parliament trips, theatre or museum outings, to visits to historical landmarks.

Further information about the curriculum can be found by

• talking to your child's class teacher
• finding out about the National Curriculum at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum
• looking at the class pages to see what learning has been taking place recently.  

• looking at the class pages for each year group for more information about the curriculum. There you will find curriculum letters for each half term of learning. 

Phonics Teaching at Blandford St Mary Primary School

We teach phonics using the Essential Letters and Sounds phonics scheme.