Curriculum

St Simon Stock Catholic School Curriculum Intent Statement

At St Simon Stock Catholic School, our curriculum vision is to deliver a broad, balanced and innovative curriculum that enables students to achieve academic excellence with wider social awareness that is developed through the Catholic ethos, mission and values of the school. Our vision is for students to have a love of learning and in the words of our motto, to always Work with Love.

Wider Curriculum Philosophy and Aims

At our school, we aim to inspire students through our curriculum and encourage them to Work with Love and hope and seek the paths they desire for their future careers.

The school intends to offer students new and exciting experiences through its curriculum and also through an enrichment curriculum that is designed to build character, leadership, resilience, communication skills, confidence and self-esteem.

We encourage our students to aim high and achieve their potential and be loved and nurtured to become life-long learners who are prepared for the modern world.

We encourage all our students to aim high and to achieve their potential. We want them to feel loved and nurtured and to for them to become life-long learners who are prepared for the modern world. We ensure that the learning needs of all students, including the most able and those who are disadvantaged, are fully met.

Through the design of our curriculum, we also seek to develop character and educate the whole person as made in the image and likeness of God. We centre this around our Carmelite charism and our Catholic Social Teaching and we encourage our students to Work with Love and to strive to develop their spiritual, moral, social and learning attitudes. This is so that they may become the best that they can and live the best possible life.

Our curriculum encourages them to live a life of service and ‘Go and do Likewise’. The curriculum encourages our students to support communities and to be appreciative, reflective, inclusive and welcoming and it calls students to prayer to discern God’s love. The curriculum calls students to be hopeful, to have faith and to be charitable.

Our curriculum is built around three key academic virtues:

Attainment

Students are expected to be ready and responsible and to maintain a scholarly attitude in all lessons and work to the best of their ability and engage and be aided to engage where they can in enrichment activities.

Appreciation

Students are invited to appreciate the cultures, mission, vision and values that enrich our school community and develop an understanding of cultural capital and to be respectful.

Reflection

Students are expected to reflect on their learning and realise that a love of learning can lead to achievement in school and beyond their time in school.

Our ambitious curriculum will carefully sequence learning, so that students learn and apply knowledge and skills, which will then be enhanced further with an exciting diversity of enrichment activities. Our carefully considered curriculum will be well planned, well-structured and thoughtfully sequenced, so that long term learning builds. Memory is fundamental and will be developed by students thinking hard to retrieve knowledge, spacing concepts and skills in each subject, and interleaving them throughout the curriculum.

Our teaching is excellent and is innovative, challenging and motivating and will inspire students to move beyond class-based learning.

Our curriculum will always ensure that learning and teaching is of the highest quality and utilises technology to enhance this where possible.

Assessment

Regular testing and assessment are integral to the curriculum with full reports sent to parents/carers annually and interim progress reports sent to parents/carers three times a year after each progress cycle. Parents/guardians will be encouraged to co-operate with the school by monitoring their child’s work and activities, by frequent inspection of home learning tasks on Edulink and by attending meetings arranged for the purpose of discussing student’s progress.

Our approach to the curriculum takes into account the Equalities Act (2010) and Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations (2014). We believe our academic curriculum is challenging, exciting and designed specifically for our keen learners, whilst catering for the variety of needs from our individual students. The curriculum is designed to provide access and opportunity for all students who attend the school. Where required, students with SEND will receive the additional support they require both academically and with their personal development, in line with the school’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Policy.

This will or may include:

Teachers being aware of the needs of their students and striving to meet these in class through the implementation of mainstream core standards.
Offering a bespoke and adapted curriculum for SEND students with complex needs who may find accessing the mainstream curriculum difficult.
Working with teachers or support staff in smaller groups to work on topics covered in lessons to ensure they do not fall behind their peers.
Taking measures to ensure students with SEND are not discriminated against in any way.
Ensuring students with SEND have their needs and provisions documented in provision mapping software and used to aid teacher planning.
Teachers monitoring the progress of students with SEND and reporting this to the SENCO.
Adopting a close working relationship between the SENCO and teachers to help them break down any barriers students with SEND have to education.

Curriculum Aims

At St Simon Stock Catholic School, we will also:

Offer a broad and balanced curriculum rich in knowledge and experience both in and outside of the classroom which builds on the knowledge and skills gained at Key Stage 2
Offers students a wide range of opportunities to own and personalise their curriculum in order to develop existing talents and interests and discover new ones
Provide a wide range of courses that challenge, engage and raise aspirations of our students
Provide students with opportunities to take their curriculum beyond the classroom to develop their love of learning, independence and creative thinking
Provide the depth that enables students to master the key knowledge and skills essential for each subject
Encourage and engender high expectations and challenge in order to build students’ perseverance and self-belief
Foster the development of students’ character, personal development, health and wellbeing preparing them to make a valuable contribution to society
Ensure the curriculum is well designed, inclusive and carefully sequenced to provide all students with a rigorous foundation for future progression
Ensure the curriculum is progressive, interleaved and sequenced to develop knowledge and understanding which provides deep, sustainable and valuable learning for all students
Ensure that we recognises the increasing importance of demands placed upon young people in order to keep them safe in a digital age
Ensure students have a long-lasting knowledge and understanding of the Catholic Faith and the core principles of Catholic Social Teaching, and that of other World Faiths.
Ensure equality of access to learning for all, with high expectations and appropriate levels of challenge and support
Enable students to maximise their potential, achieving the highest levels of academic success leading to the widest range of pathways
Raise students’ aspirations and equips them with the knowledge and skills to flourish in their future careers
Provide excellent Careers Education
Promote reading, literacy and numeracy, oracy and scholarly habits as explicit foci
Provide opportunities to develop levels of literacy and numeracy across all curriculum areas
Instil and foster curiosity, as well an enjoyment of the educational experience – have fun!

Kent Catholic Schools' Partnership Statement of Curriculum Intent

have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.

John 10: Chapter 10. V 10.

Inspired by Jesus Christ’s example and the Gospel values of love, joy and compassion, we nurture and develop the whole child so that each unique individual grows constantly in confidence, and has the knowledge, skills and self-esteem to achieve their true potential. All children will access a rich, ambitious, challenging curriculum; one that is broad, balanced and relevant, fostering curiosity, creativity and a lifelong love of learning. It will prepare them well for each stage of education, employment or training and enable them, as educated citizens, to contribute to creating a better world.

Kent Catholic Schools' Partnership English Baccalaureate (EBacc) Statement

All KCSP Secondary Academies are committed to ensuring that as many pupils as possible study the EBacc suite of qualifications. To this end, we ensure that:

All pupils have full access to EBacc options when making GCSE choices. Every pupil in a KCSP Secondary Academy will be able to study EBacc options.
All pupils whose prior attainment and progress at KS3 suggest that they may ‘achieve’ the EBacc suite of qualifications at GCSE Grade 5 or above are strongly encouraged to choose these options. This is communicated to pupils in assemblies, 1:1 interviews and via communication with their parents/carers; e.g., all Open Days or Parent/Carer Evenings will include promotion of the EBacc suite as a positive Catholic curriculum option
All pupils are informed of the benefits of studying the EBacc suite of subjects.
All pupils are given access to high-quality teaching in EBacc subjects in Key Stage 3.

Given the differences in prior attainment across the academies and the varying interests and needs of the children, EBacc entries will vary between academies and from year-to-year. However, our positive promotion of EBacc subjects will see an upward trajectory in entries over time.