Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School

At Sacred Heart, we are dedicated to our motto, learning in love. To do this, we have 6 core values to support our personal, spiritual and academic progress and achievements. Religious Education enables our children to know and grow in their own faith and develop their spirituality. At Sacred Heart, the social, moral, spiritual and cultural education is embedded in our vision. At Sacred Heart, we believe in providing a broad and balanced curriculum which caters to the need of all our children. We teach all aspects of the science and PSHE curriculum linked to development and relationships however, we do not yet specifically teach SRE lessons outside of this.We believe that SRE is essential for developing the whole child and are therefore in the process of researching a suitable scheme and set of resources for Summer 2018 which will reflect the school and Church's values.

E-safety is about how we protect ourselves and other people when we use the internet. It involves protecting information and images about ourselves, while being polite. We discuss e-safety regularly at school, and learn how to apply its principles to the internet resources that we are using.

As a Catholic school, Sacred Heart aims to create a Community in which each pupil can develop his/her potential as fully as possible and with a view to a personal commitment to Christ. Ultimately, the school aims to develop and deliver a curriculum that is broad, balanced, coherent, flexible and relevant to all the pupils. One that is also responsive to their needs and to the demands of their educational journey through primary and secondary school and on into further education.

The curriculum is all the planned activities that we organise in order to promote learning and personal growth and development. It includes not only the formal requirements of the National Curriculum, but also the wide range of extra-curricular activities that the school organises in order to enrich the experience of the children. It also includes the `hidden curriculum', or what the children learn from the way they are treated and expected to behave. We aim to teach children how to grow into positive, responsible people, who can work and co-operate with others while developing knowledge and skills, so that they achieve their potential.Our school curriculum is underpinned by the values of our school. The curriculum is the means by which the school achieves its objective of educating children in the knowledge, skills and understanding that they need in order to lead fulfilling lives.

As a school, we recognise the importance of reading for all pupils and therefore, have a comprehensive and thorough approach to the teaching of reading across the school including, daily phonics lessons in KS1.School follows the Letter and Sounds scheme of work for phonics. Writing is taught through a topic-based approach, as much as possible, in order to provide purpose and audience for the pupils. Grammatical accuracy is embedded in the teaching of writing but also as a discrete element of the English curriculum. The mathematics curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics including the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. Pupils are taught to reason mathematically, solve problems and apply their mathematical skills in a variety of real life contexts.

We recognise that social, moral, spiritual and cultural development is central to the education of all pupils. It is reflected in the behaviours of individuals and in their interactions and also in the provision of teaching, resources and learning environments. We promote ‘British Values’ through our spiritual, moral, social and cultural education which permeates through the school’s curriculum and supports the development of the ‘whole child’. The other subjects of the national Curriculum are taught through a topic based approach.In order to ensure that our curriculum is broad and balanced, we use a thematic approach across a half or whole term. This means that, for example, a pupil may concentrate in one term on a history topic, then switch to a greater emphasis on geography in the next term. Over the three terms of the academic year, each pupil has the opportunity to experience the full range of National Curriculum subjects.

The Governing Body is made up the of the headteacher and four different types of governors; parent governors (who are parents at the school, elected by the parents), a staff governor (elected by the staff), a Local Authority Governor (appointed by the Local Authority) and Foundation governors (appointed by the Archdiocese). There are 12 governors in total. The Governing Body provides strategic leadership whilst supporting and challenging the work of the school. The head teacher is responsible for the day-to-day leadership of the school and the Governing Body’s role is to provide support to the head teacher and other staff by acting as a “critical friend”. The Governing Body is not responsible for the day-to-day management of the school. The visibility of the various Governors will differ depending on their role. As an example, one or more parent governors can often be found in the school on a daily basis with either their parent and/or governor hats on and LA and foundation governors can often be seen at school events. Governors meet at school once a term for full board meetings and also come into the school for committee meetings and monitoring visits. Governors sign up to a governors code of conduct.

The Department of Education is providing all primary schools with additional funding to improve the provision of PE and sport. The funding calculation is based on the number of children at the school. PE funding is allocated to schools for all children to benefit from a wide and varied PE curriculum to encourage achievement and a healthy lifestyle.