Curriculum Vision
To develop in children an excitement and curiosity about the world around them and a love of learning.
At St. John’s we aim to stimulate children’s curiosity and challenge them to explore learning in depth, as encouraged by the National Curriculum. We recognise that children need to learn skills, in order to equip them with the learning tools essential for life-long learning. Therefore planning focuses on skills to enable children to become Historians, Artists, Musicians etc.
We value Learning Outside the Classroom as a key part of this; we endeavour to ensure the pupils learn from real and practical learning experiences. In addition to this we recognise the need to offer pupils these essential wider life experiences and therefore seek to make the most of the opportunities presented by living in London. As a Green Flag School we recognise the importance of environmental awareness being part of the curriculum.
Here is our Curriculum prospectus – our Statements of Intent for each area of the Curriculum.
Phonics
Teaching of phonics begins in the Nursery and continues throughout Reception and into Years 1 and 2 using the Collins ‘Song of Sounds’ programme. This teaches the letters in a specific sequence and in growing complexity, with words taught alongside the sounds. Children may progress quickly through each phase or may need extra support as they move through each of the phases.
Please take the time to have a look at their website and practice with your child.
Reading
Reading at St John’s is one of the most important things we can teach your child to do. Throughout the primary school journey, we teach pupils all the basic skills needed to enable them to read independently.
We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for enjoyment. This is why we work hard to make sure children develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read. We start by teaching phonics in Nursery using the highly successful ‘Song of Sounds’ phonics programme. Children learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well.
Once children can blend sounds together to read words, they practise reading books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start to believe they can read and this does wonders for their confidence. We ask that you help by listening to your child read every day.
More information
For further detail on the Curriculum at St. John’s Catholic School please see the Class Termly Newsletters published under Newsletters. If you have any queries about the curriculum please contact the School Office via the Contact us Page, in the first instance.
Please download our School Prospectus below. This will give you information on the school’s curriculum subject by subject.
Our five key inspection judgements were marked as follows: