St Vincent’s curriculum provides excellence in learning. We work relentlessly to ensure all our children are ready for the next stages in their education.
St Vincent’s is privileged to have a high reputation as top education league table performer in our community and beyond. This is achieved because we provide an outstanding grounding in basic skills including reading, writing, spelling, grammar, mathematical understanding and confidence in the expressive arts (i.e. musical performances).
We use a rigorous and robust ongoing assessment to ensure our children are appropriately challenged and thus they achieve exceptionally well.
We also ensure our children acquire the necessary tools to be successful citizens of the 21 century and active participants in life in modern Britain. Our values, blended with a mixture of Gospel values, Democratic values and Learning attributes, guide our children’s personal, spiritual, moral as well as social and cultural development: Love, Forgiveness, Compassion, Resilience, Curiosity and Aspiration.
We are determined our children are prepared for challenges and opportunities in their lives by giving them grounding in their learning and strong values forming their character. These values are experienced throughout our everyday school life.
Intent
St Vincent’s Catholic Primary is a special school where the Gospel Values underpin everything we do. “We live, love and learn with Christ.”
Our fabulous children are reflective learners who desire to achieve their very best and indeed excellence. Our curriculum, together with outstanding teaching and learning is a strong driver of social mobility. At St Vincent’s, no child is left behind, we can all succeed. This is evidenced on our exceptional standards at the end of Year 6 when, in fact, many of our children will move to elite grammar schools.
We use the National Curriculum and believe that our children deserve it to be tailored to their needs. With this in mind, we have prioritised the things we want our children to enjoy, experience and remember during their time with us. We have embedded on our long and medium term plans, strategies to ensure we alter the long term memory. We aim for our children to know more, remember more and do more.
Our curriculum is designed with our students and the local community in mind. It enables children to access and expand their understanding of their homes, their local area and the wider community. We develop their cultural capital and give them opportunities and choices about their future. We enable our students to reflect about their impact in their world and their environment as they progress through their school days and beyond.
Spelling and phonics
Support your child's spelling
Phase 2 Sound Mat
Phase 3 Sound Mat
Phase 5 Sound Mat
Reading
Introducing a New Book
Tips on Hearing Your Child Read
Help Your Child to Learn to Read
Reading VIPERS Question Stems KS1
Reading VIPERS Question Stems KS2
Mathematics
Helping your Child with Maths
Help Your Child to Become Confident with Counting & Recognising Numbers etc
St Vincent's Calculation Policy - Addition
St Vincent's Calculation Policy - Subtraction
St Vincent's Calculation Policy - Multiplication
St Vincent's Calculation Policy - Division
Writing
Help Your Child to Learn to Write
Outings - for Insurance information please refer to the About Us section of this website and click on the Policies and Other Documents Tab
Religious Education
As a Catholic school, religion is not just another subject in the curriculum, but it is a way of life. It permeates all relationships and activities.
The Governors have agreed that the delivery of religious education at St Vincent’s will be in accordance with Diocesan Policy and is sustained through close links with the home and parish. We are following the ‘Way, the Truth and the Life' Religious Education Programme. This programme aims to encourage children’s awareness of the presence of God and to help them respond to that presence.
Religious Education also happens through regular prayer, assemblies and Masses. Fr Mario celebrates school Masses on occasions throughout the year. Hymns and music are used to enhance all our worship.
Underlying our teaching and our relationships are the Gospel values of Honesty and Humility, Justice, Forgiveness and Mercy. Our aim within this context is that all members of our community show respect and care for one another and extend their concern to the needy by prayer and charitable service.
As a Catholic school we expect all children to attend RE lessons and assemblies. However, any parent can request permission for their child to be excused from RE lessons and religious worship, and the school will make alternative arrangements for the supervision of the child.
Parents and carers do not have to explain or give reasons for their request. This right of withdrawal complies with the 1944 Education Act, and was restated in the 1988 Education Reform Act.
The headteacher will keep a record of all children who have been withdrawn from RE lessons or collective worship.
Early Years Foundation Stage
Provision of an Early Years education that aims to meet the individual needs of every child in our care is of paramount importance. All our children are encouraged to be independent, to develop positive attitudes towards learning and to reach their full potential.
The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum is a high quality teaching programme to promote children’s learning. During a child’s time in the Reception Class, he or she will work towards achieving the Early Learning Goals, which is a statutory requirement for all children in the Foundation Stage. The skills learned during this stage will give the children secure foundations on which to build future learning. We offer an educational programme that has ample opportunities for individual development, exploration, decision-making and problem solving.
EYFS - Long term plan
Literacy YEARS 1-6
We give literacy a high degree of priority. Speaking and listening, reading and writing, spelling and handwriting are important elements of literacy in the National Curriculum.
We aim to create an environment in which all aspects of language, reading, writing, speaking and listening are enjoyed in their own right, and in which children gain a love of the world of literature and communication
Every aspect of the children's work is influenced by the extent to which they use language with imagination and accuracy. Competence in reading, writing, speaking and listening is encouraged throughout the curriculum in order to enable the children to communicate appropriately and effectively.
Numeracy
Considerable importance is attached to the children understanding mathematical processes, concepts and skills. Above all it can be a powerful means of communication. Enthusiasm for maths is encouraged by presenting it in an interesting and enjoyable way, allowing the children to actively participate in the learning process, thus creating a sense of achievement and confidence. There is a strong emphasis on the development of mental arithmetic and problem solving.
Science
Through the presentation of scientific problems, the children are given the opportunity to develop a range of skills they can apply to other situations. This enables the children’s natural curiosities to develop into real scientific thinking. Children learn through investigation, asking questions and planning ways in which to find answers. In this way they can build up a body of knowledge to support future scientific thinking.
Computing Technology
Children regularly use computers in our IT suite and in the classrooms. The school is connected to the Internet and children are taught how to use email and the Internet safely. All classrooms have an interactive whiteboard. IT is a cross curricular resource which with specific IT skills equips children for their future careers.
Spanish
Children in Years 2-6 are taught Spanish. The focus is on speaking Spanish and listening with understanding to Spanish.
Spanish curriculum overview
Design and Technology
Through Design and Technology, the children are encouraged to identify, examine and solve practical problems and to make existing situations better. The children are encouraged to be inventive, using a range of materials and tools, thus developing, modifying and evaluating their ideas through a series of cross curricular themes where possible.
History
These subjects are brought to life by using artifacts, local studies and visiting speakers to help develop an understanding of how our society and culture and that of others around the world have developed. An appreciation of the influences of people, time, place, conditions and events in the past and present is developed through specific units of work.
Physical Education
We endeavour to maintain our strong tradition of sporting involvement and achievement, through a range of activities providing an environment which will benefit the children's physical, emotional and moral well-being. Our PE provision aims to embrace a range of games activities, gymnastics, dance, athletics, swimming and outdoor adventurous activities. Sports coaches are employed throughout the year and across the school.
PE Long Term Plan
Music
Music is developed across all age groups from Reception to Y6. Children in Years 2-6 are taught by a music specialist and learn to play the recorder and percussion instruments.
The children are encouraged to compose, listen, discuss and perform with a variety of audiences in mind. They learn to appreciate music of different styles, cultures and times, and to use their voices and a range of instruments as expressive media.
The standard of singing throughout the school is high. Our children have performed in the Young Voices Concerts at the O2 Arena and in the Bromley Music Prom at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon.
We have a number of peripatetic music teachers who provide lessons for a variety of instruments during school hours.
Art & Design
The children are encouraged to be spontaneously creative, using a variety of media and techniques in art and craftwork. An awareness of colour, shape, balance, focus and proportion are developed alongside the use of symbols to convey ideas and feelings.
Art and Design curriculum overview
Personal, Social and Health Education and Citizenship (PSHE)
PSHE involves the development of healthy attitudes, aspects of safe living and the development of good social and personal relationships. Our aim is for our children to lead confident, healthy, independent lives and to become informed active and responsible citizens.
Relationships and Sex Education
From September 2020, the Government has made Relationship and Health Education statutory for all primary schools. To fulfil this statutory requirement, we are using a programme by Ten:Ten, called Life to the Full.
Life to the Full is a Relationships and Health Education curriculum programme underpinned by a Christian faith understanding that our deepest identity is as a child of God – created, chosen and loved by God.
The Life to the Full programme is based on the structure of ‘A Model Catholic RSE Curriculum’ by the Catholic Education Service. This model curriculum was highlighted as a work of good practice by the Department of Education so we therefore have confidence that the programme will be fit for purpose in supporting the growth and development of your child.
Life to the Full is much more than a series of lessons. It is an entire platform of creative resources that will engage, inform and inspire our children and, indeed, you as parents. This includes interactive video content, story-based activities, employing a wide range of teaching tools, original worship music and an accompanying programme of classroom prayers
Life to the Full is intended to be partnership between home, school and church. We hope that our programme, Life to the Full, will further develop, support and enrich the partnerships so that your child is fully supported in their journey