OUR CURRICULUM 

Our school's Curriculum Offer is key to our work with our children.  It is well designed and is planned specifically to enable all our children to be fully interested and engaged in their learning so that they are enabled to achieve their very best.  We want our teaching  and curriculum to support,  challenge and enrich children's lives and help them to develop  a real curiosity and love for learning.   Through our Curriculum Offer and the additional, wider experiences available to  all our children, we deliver some of the key  strands of  our School Vision and are 'Inspiring Each Other to Shine':  

• Celebrating individuals – We encourage children to feel pride in their efforts, have confidence in their own abilities and celebrate individual successes in all areas of life.
• Learning for life - We promote a love of learning and foster children’s curiosity about the world around them, so that they experience life in all its fullness both now and in the future.
• Inspiring excellence – We equip children with a strong foundation of knowledge, skills and attitudes through a carefully planned and engaging curriculum, with a wide range of opportunities both in and out of the classroom. 

Our Curriculum has been designed specifically for our children in our school.  The curriculum has been well planned and sequenced by our school staff, so that childrens' knowledge is revisited and built upon each year, to enable children to  LEARN more, REMEMBER more and DO more.  

Curriculum Themes:

Themes run through many subjects which support our school's ethos and vision.  Themes such as awareness of Eco issues, global sustainability issues, diversity, justice and equality issues  are threaded through each school year in a range of subjects. Our local area and many local features such as the River Ribble, tourism and the development  of St Annes on Sea as a tourist destination, are carefully threaded through the Curriculum. The local area is used very well as a learning resource, with each class planned to use the local area for a range of subejcts such as Science, RE, History, Geography, Art and Computing work. In addition, the local area features in plans for children's wider personal development by preparing children for Road Safety Work, visiting the Lifeboat station to emphasise water safety, visiting our local library regularly, and visitng a number of places of worship such as the Churches, the Synagogue and Mosque.  The beach and coastline are a key part of our local area and all children every year will be learning on the beach and seaside at some point.  

Learning in the Outdoors:

This is a priority area for our school.  All our children use our extensive grounds and the outdoors as this is a key part of our Curriculum design and planning.  Our Forest School Provision is strong and plays a large part in the personal development and well being of all of our pupils. We have three teachers who are fully accredited Forest School Practitioners. In addition to our forest school Curriculum, the Forest School teachers have developed the school’s bespoke ‘Come Outside Curriculum’ running from EYFS to Y6.  This focus enables all our children to access the outdoors and encompasses growing (Science), outdoor cooking, mapping and environment work (Geography), using nature and outdoors as influences and inspiration for music, poetry and art and also encompasses the use of technology.  We are delighted that the access to this provision has recently been significantly widened across school  - which the children love! 

 Reading is a key focus for our school, and the teaching of reading is strong and well established in our school.    We clearly state our intention that 'Everybody Reads' at St Thomas'. In the early years of schooling, we make it a high priority that children are supported to quickly  'Learn to Read', so that they can then 'Read to Learn'  and open the doorways to further developments.  Our very successful end of Key Stage 2 results reflect this emphasis.  We have planned our approach to teaching reading, and developing children as readers,  as we believe it's so important and it is our privilege, in partnership with parents/carers,  to share the joy and enjoyment of books and reading so that all St Thomas' children:

• Read to enjoy
• Read to imagine
• Read to learn
• Read to achieve
• Read to dream
• Read to explore
• Read to laugh
• Read to relax
• Read to go on adventures
• Read to understand
• Read to be amazed
• Read to be informed
• Read to be knowledgable
• Read to be entertained
• Read to pass the time
• Read because they want to! 

School and home  - partners in learning:

We know that our families like to share in their children's learning and are interested to know what their children will be covering in school. We share our learning regularly with our families. On each class website page we share termly overviews and yearly overviews highlighting the learning in class. We share the key vocabulary we want our children to know and remember and we also invite families into school regulalry to come in and see learning in action in a range of subejcts and work alongside their children. We love it when our families join us in school! 

Children in Reception class follow the Early Years Framework for their learning, and the children in Year 1 and above follow the National Curriculum. If you would like to know more about these stages of learning, please click on the link below. 

Click here for the National Curriculum - a guide for parents and carers

Click here for a guide to the Early Years Foundation Stage for parents and carers