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Our Mission
At St. Aidan’s, we believe that our role in education is to provide all children with the very best start in life to experience life in its fullness, regardless of background. Our main priority is to develop the full potential of each and every pupil in our academy.
Using the Thrive approach, we promote healthy emotional development in all pupils, to develop curious minds and confident, creative and capable children.
In order to provide our children with a high quality education, we are committed to the impactful use of technology that goes beyond the National Curriculum. St. Aidan’s pupils develop critical, digital skills where the use of technology is maximised. Teaching and learning is transformed with Chromebooks where we have 1:1 devices for every pupil in key stage two.
By the end of their time at St. Aidan’s we also expect all pupils to be effective communicators through a talk rich curriculum which extends beyond the classroom. At St Aidan’s oracy is a core skill and a natural part of our pedagogy and practice, where every voice is valued and children become confident and articulate communicators. Our children are empowered to use their voices to achieve their best as learners across a rich curriculum, therefore improving their life chances.
Our mission is based on clearly established Christian values and principles.
Intent
At St. Aidan’s we want all of our children to know more and remember more. We aim to fulfil each child’s potential through a research informed, progressive curriculum that is relevant, exciting, vocabulary and language rich and is designed to our local context to meet the growing diverse needs of our children. In order to do this we foster positive and supportive learning environments where a love of learning is ignited, children are motivated and are taught learning behaviours.
We know the needs of our community and have a broad and ambitious curriculum in place where experiences are strategically planned to enable our children to experience ‘life in all its fullness’ which they would otherwise not encounter. Across all subjects we focus on securing the foundational knowledge and skills that every child needs by the end of key stage 1 to remove barriers to learning in key stage 2 in order to give our children the best chance of educational success and to improve their life outcomes as resilient members of society. Subsequently, our curriculum is well planned and sequenced in small progressive steps.
Implementation
Our curriculum meets the statutory requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), National Curriculum and locally agreed Religious Education syllabus. All children are exposed to the early foundations in mathematics, English, Science, History, Music, Computing, Geography, PSHE, RE, Art, Spanish, Design Technology and PE. Our curriculum is delivered through high quality teaching, learning and assessment experiences for children, by skilful and committed staff.
The implementation of our curriculum begins with subject leaders who are well informed through up to date professional development, literature, attendance at professional learning communities, school improvement groups and wider networks.
Subject specific disciplinary and substantive knowledge has been mapped out by subject leaders who support teachers in the adaptive delivery of the content.
Teachers then plan progressive lessons with ‘checks’ embedded within lessons, opportunities for practice to ensure fluency and complex tasks are saved for when knowledge is secure. Lessons are inclusive and challenging. Teachers recognise that for children to remember something they have learned, this involves transferring facts and skills from the short-term memory into long-term memory for retrieval. This is not an automatic process so explicit opportunities are planned across the curriculum as shown below
Teachers have the confidence and subject knowledge to stop and address misconceptions or misunderstandings on the basis of ‘As fast as possible, as slow as necessary’ using a range of strategies such as hinge questions.
Children benefit from strong relationships with staff who engage in regular, quality oracy discussions and feedback for learning and behaviour.
Learning and knowledge is enhanced through visitors to school, educational visits, adaptive technology, themed days, exhibitions and wider community links.
Impact
Our children make good progress from their individual starting points, building on prior knowledge, skills and understanding. High quality teaching and learning ensures our children know more and remember more, whilst demonstrating ownership, enthusiasm and resilience to be lifelong learners. Through taught oracy skills and ownership of creating quality ‘show its’ children have the opportunity to articulate and celebrate their own unique personality, talents and skills, and those of others.
By ensuring that our children attain the skills and knowledge expected in all subjects at the end of each year we know that they are well prepared for their next stage of education, academically, socially and personally.
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