The Curriculum for Wales at St. Joseph’s
Senior leaders, staff, pupils, parents and carers have worked collaboratively over several years to develop a shared vision for the curriculum that we have adopted at St Joseph’s Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre.
The Four Purposes
Our school’s curriculum meets the required elements as set out in the national framework.
It is focused on ensuring that pupils develop the four purposes of being Ambitious Capable Learners; Enterprising Creative Contributors; Ethical and Informed Citizens and Healthy Confident Individuals.
Focused on Skills
The curriculum at our school is progressive and will ensure pupils develop control and independence in their development of their literacy, numeracy, digital and integral skills.
In addition, this will ensure pupils engage with increasingly complex and sophisticated content to progress their knowledge and understanding.
The What Matters Statements
Learners will develop an understanding of all What Matters statements as part of the school’s curriculum.
The process of exploring and revisiting these statements will enable our learners to develop ever deeper knowledge over their learning continuum and to progress to a more sophisticated understanding of the key knowledge, ideas and principles in each Area of Learning and Experience.
Assessment and Curriculum
Assessment at our school enables learner progression as it is focused on supporting learners to move forward with their learning on a day to day basis and identifying, capturing and reflecting on learners’ progress over time.
Our school’s curriculum is broad and balanced, ensuring that pupils develop an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach to learning and ensures learners make meaningful links across the six Areas of Learning and Experience. This approach enables learners to build connections across their learning and combine different experiences, knowledge and skills.
Our curriculum is designed to develop in our pupils a sense of belonging, not just in a physical or geographical sense but also the historic, cultural and social place which has shaped and continues to shape the community which our school inhabits.
We aim to help our pupils make sense of their own identities and those of others, in our community, Wales and the across the world.
Self Evalutation and Monitoring
We will monitor the impact of our curriculum on pupils’ progression and their development of the four purposes on a continuous basis throughout each academic year and complete a formal review on an annual basis. Our annual self-evaluation will consider the extent to which learners make progress in the ways described in the Principles of Progression and the extent to which the pace of learners’ progress is in line with the expectations of teachers and the curriculum.
School Improvement
Our findings will inform our school improvement priorities.
School staff, especially senior and middle leaders, will continue to take part in local and national events (e.g. Network conversations, Talk pedagogy).
Senior leaders will continue to engage in meetings with other partners (e.g. universities, third sector).