Intent, Implentation & Impact

Our intention at St. Andrew’s is that all of our children will, by the time they leave us, be able to access the broad range of learning opportunities open to them as they move into secondary education. We recognise the influence we can have to build confident, successful learners and citizens, now and in the future, and our whole curriculum, alongside high-quality teaching, is the tool through which we do this.

We are a Church of England Primary school in the heart of Enfield Town, with close links to St. Andrew’s Church. Our Christian values of Love, Courage and Friendship and our vision: With God’s love, we live, learn and grow together are lived out in all we do. The positive relationships between children and adults, as well as with each other, are developed through these values, as part of our daily interactions, through Collective Worship, lunchtime check-ins and our PSHE lessons. Our partnership with St. Paul’s Church of England School provides us with opportunities for joint training to support quality teaching as well as opportunities for pupils to engage together in curriculum enhancement activities.

We are also a community school, intent on being outward-facing and giving support to our local community and beyond. Examples of this can be seen through the setting up of our own school foodbank for school families and developing links with a school in Zambia.

Our curriculum is heavily linked with the local community in Enfield, such as businesses, secondary schools, Enfield Council, places of worship and a residential home for the elderly. These links help us to design a curriculum which builds on the importance for our children to develop the skills, knowledge and ambition that they will need to be successful citizens of the future.

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum, since successful readers will lead to successful learners. Therefore, creating a love of reading at home and in school, teaching the skills of reading and early reading interventions are paramount within our curriculum.

We also promote the joy of reading through whole school reading buddies, secondary school reading mentors with Y5 and Y10 students and through a number of extra-curricular Book Clubs. The timetable is carefully planned so that read aloud stories, rhymes, poetry and songs take centre stage in a classroom or during Collective Worship, every day.

Our curriculum follows the National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage aims in all areas, to ensure that coverage is broad and balanced and that key knowledge is securely understood. We also aim for our children to make links across their learning, as they progress through the school. Leaders work with Subject Leads to ensure all pupils are provided with experiences to enhance learning in the classroom.

A yearly overview of trips, local and London-based visits, exhibitions, workshops, music and sporting events, visitors and themed weeks ensure maximum impact across many areas of the curriculum and beyond.

We also provide a wide range of extra-curricular activities that enable our children to learn in different situations and beyond the curriculum subjects. These include Chess, Singing Club, Girls’ and Boys’ Football, British Signing Club and Nature Club.

At St. Andrew’s CE Primary School, we are continuing to develop more diverse links within our curriculum. For example, we have developed close links with the Enfield Caribbean Society, whose literature and members have helped to support the development of our Migration unit in Year 5 history. In Geography, our links with Zambia are supporting our children’s understanding of place knowledge in Reception and Year 1. Investment in quality literature is evident in all classroom libraries and throughout the teaching of English units.

At the same time, we aim to ensure that our curriculum is meeting the specific needs of our children, given their experiences, backgrounds and their starting points, with an increasing number of our children arriving who are new to English, or with English as an additional language and a significant number of children with special educational needs.

Whether characters in the books we read reflect others or ourselves, what is most important is connecting with them in ways that help us understand who we are today

At St. Andrew’s, we have created progression documents for each subject area using the National Curriculum programmes of study, to ensure that learning is built upon as children move through the school, from Early Years to Year 6. These documents outline progression in the expectation of knowledge and skills learned through each subject. Our Subject Leaders work with the Early Years team to ensure curriculum overviews reflect the statutory requirements of the Early Years Framework, Development Matters and the National Curriculum.

Detailed curriculum overviews from Reception to Year 6 for all National Curriculum subjects and Areas of Learning, together with medium-term planning, ensures progression and high-quality teaching throughout the key stages in all subject areas.

Within each subject, the progression document details the knowledge, skills and concepts which will be taught. Learning in the subject area is gradual and forms a spiral pathway, ensuring children are able to build on previous learning and support future learning.

Teachers often link their class read aloud book to the subject being taught and will also link across subjects where appropriate. For example, where Ancient Egypt is studied in history in Year 4, the English unit may be biography, writing about Howard Carter and the class read aloud book may be Secrets of a Sun King by Emma Carroll. This would also be enriched by including a visit to the British Museum to see the Ancient Egyptian artefacts. In this way, we can be confident that there is clear progression of knowledge and skills through the curriculum, whilst enabling and encouraging children to link their learning across the curriculum and beyond.

Teachers understand the key 'nuggets' of knowledge that need to be taught, and Knowledge Organisers are designed and used by the teachers and children, to support prior and new learning.

Enrichment in the curriculum comes from trips, events, workshops, visitors, guest speakers and quality of literature. Being close to two train stations and Enfield Town, we take full advantage of free travel into London and around the Enfield area. All year groups use public transport for trips or walk to venues, which also supports our school travel plan to reduce unnecessary journeys by car or coach. We class Enfield and London as our ‘local’ areas and Subject Leads seek engaging and meaningful opportunities for all children to experience.

With God’s Love, we live, learn and grow together

Regular CPD, based on Rosenshine’s Principles, is planned, to develop teachers' skills and maintain and improve standards. Techniques are taught, planned for, trialled and reviewed in many subject areas. This ongoing professional development is planned over 1 to 2 years and shared with our Partnership School, St. Paul’s Church of England School.

At St. Andrew’s, we know that children learn through repetition over time, regular recall and through making links with prior knowledge and understanding. We know that being taught ‘mental models’ for learning, such as retrieval practice, practising of skills and opportunities for repetition, helps to build links in their knowledge and understanding so that they know more and can remember more.

It is through our careful curriculum design, from Early Years to Year 6, that we ensure the children make good progress, regardless of their starting points in their learning, across all subjects. Teachers and Subject Leaders recognise their role in linking new teaching to past learning and understand where their teaching fits into the bigger whole school picture, within each subject and across our curriculum.

It is in this way that we can be confident our curriculum meets the needs of all of our children and ensure that they make good progress in their learning as they move through our school.