Curriculum

As a larger than average local authority maintained junior school, we follow the National Curriculum for Key Stage 2. The school's catchment is situated in the second most deprived index nationally and over 85% of our children speak English as an additional language. We have identified barriers to learning and have designed our curriculum to provide, through inspiring and engaging experiences, the knowledge and skills for our children to become independent, life-long learners. We continually review and adapt our curriculum to provide a total communication approach.

Aims

At CJS, using the National Curriculum to underpin how subjects are sequenced, planned, and assessed, we have designed a progressive and well-sequenced knowledge-based curriculum. The programmes of study meet the expectations of the National Curriculum whilst also recognising the adaptations required to meet the needs of our children. This includes a clear focus on these four foundations:

• Oracy – we use the power of talk to engage interest, promote deep thinking and social skills and empower children for lifelong learning.
• Reading – we prioritise the importance of reading as the key to accessing the curriculum. We promote a love of reading and ensure that children develop their knowledge through high-quality texts and resources.
• Experiences – we build pupils’ cultural capital and develop their background knowledge of the world. We carefully plan experiences to immerse and ignite curiosity.
• Memory and recall – we design lessons that support children with making changes to their long term memory and increasing their independence.
  
  

How is our foundation curriculum delivered?

Our foundation curriculum is designed to give our children the opportunity to revisit learning, allowing them to build schema and effectively transfer information from their working memory to their long term memory.

• Science, RE, Music, French, PSHE, Computing and PE are taught throughout the year.
• History and Geography are taught in discrete blocks throughout the year with a driving question that leads the learning. This work is then showcased to peers and family at exhibitions through rehearsed and refined oral presentations of learning.
• Art and DT are taught in blocks linked to a driving question or as part of focus tasks, developing key discrete objectives and skills. 

Equality

More information about how our school complies with the Equality Act 2010, our Equality and Diversity Policy and our school Equality Objectives can be found in our Equality Objectives and Statement policy. We teach children about protected characteristics through Everyone’s Welcome and PSHE lessons.

Please contact our Headteacher, Jo Badge, if you wish to know more about our curriculum. You can contact her through the school office on 0116 262 5896 or by emailing c.office@catherine-jun.leicester.sch.uk