Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement

Following our mission statement, we are a very small church school, much like a family, with a child-centred approach. We work closely with family, friends, and members of the community to embed the love of God throughout our curriculum. We want our children to believe they can be whatever they want to be and achieve whatever they set out to achieve. It is our intent that children will develop a love of learning through exciting, challenging and stimulating experiences, enriched by visits and visitors. Developing the whole child is extremely important to us. Our children will learn to love themselves and one another and embrace the differences in modern society.

At Altham St. James, the curriculum is designed to: recognise children’s prior learning, provide first hand learning experiences, allow the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers. We aim to nurture children who can plan for tasks independently and reflect upon their success. Pupils who can engage and talk about their learning in an environment where nobody is afraid to make a mistake, but where they can fully engage with feedback and use it to improve future learning.

School will provide a curriculum where knowledge is cumulative and prior learning is built upon in a sequence that ensures sufficient knowledge and skills are gained for future life. We will provide a variety of relevant experiences for our children both inside and outside the classroom and our visitors will be people who our children may one day aspire to be. Where possible we will use our close links with the community to provide learning opportunities which will engage and enthuse our learners. We will also seek contributions from people from different cultures and communities to the world in which the pupils live.

Developing a love of reading will be at the centre of our learning. From the children’s first day at school, there will be a sharp focus on ensuring that they gain the phonics knowledge and language comprehension necessary to read, and the skills to communicate, as we feel these are the foundations for future learning to take place.

We aim to create a culture of challenge, where children have the opportunity to push themselves through problem solving, challenging questioning and reasoning activities across the curriculum. This curriculum will contain a broad range of subjects covering the Early Years Outcomes and National Curriculum Programmes of Study throughout school.

In summary, we want every one of our children to leave school with a range of skills and knowledge that will equip them for life in modern day Britain. They will have been exposed to a range of learning experiences, met aspirational people and visited places which will inspire them and give them an idea as to the direction they want their life to take. With our faith at the heart of all we do, children will grow spiritually and morally, through a nurtured self-awareness, to become the best they can possibly be.