St Teresa's Catholic Primary School

St. Teresa’s school is a vibrant and diverse learning community. It is rich in history having been at the heart of the Parish alongside the church for over 75 years. The bond between the church and the school is unique within the Deanery. Children grow in their faith as a result of ‘joined up thinking’ between the Pastoral care team in school and the support of the Parish Pastoral team.

Children are at the heart of all that we do and we invest a lot of time ensuring that we meet the needs of entire families, making pastoral care and safety our priority. We feel strongly that all the adults who work with children in school have a shared responsibility to nurture children’s talents and support them in areas of difficulty.

Here at St Teresa’s we always reflect carefully on what we are doing to ensure the best for the children we serve with our drive always being equality and excellence.

English, mathematics and science remain very important and are considered the core subjects in both primary and secondary education. The National Curriculum sets out in detail what must be taught in each of these subjects for each year group. In parts, our curriculum will be contextual and thematic and take the form of a learning journey linking subjects such as English, History, Geography, Art and DT, however there are exceptions to this and subjects like Maths, RE, PE, Music, French and ICT will be taught discretely, with links made where possible. At the heart of our curriculum will be core “Power of Reading” texts where much of the learning will come from the study of good quality children’s literature from a range of significant authors.

Contained within our Curriculum Framework, will be clear guidance of how we as a school have addressed the change in national expectations and improved the educational experience for all children. The Progression of Skills section for each subject has been directly taken from the National Curriculum. Teachers will plan according to this Framework and be able to show that there is good curriculum coverage through the use of Long term plans (Curriculum maps and overview), Medium term plans (Progression of skills) and Short term plans (Weekly Learning journey).

When using this Curriculum framework, teachers will first write half-termly curriculum maps which will include “Power of Reading” key text being studied, genres of writing covered and a brief overview of other subject content being taught in each year group to ensure and even distribution of subjects and topics.Using the progression of skills documents that contains knowledge and skills by year group for each subject, teachers will then drill down further to identify a sequence of lessons for each topic, key skills and higher- order questions that will be used in the lessons.

At St Teresa’s we recognise, not only the importance of helping students to flourish academically but also spiritually, morally, socially and culturally, so they are fully prepared for life in British society and for their role as citizens, able to make the strongest possible contribution to the Common Good of all. We teach the importance of British Values by going much deeper into the meaning of what it means to live a good life, within a framework of Catholic Christian Values. This provides the context and meaning for understanding why British values are important. Our framework for understanding British values draws on the example of Jesus and his welcome and inclusion of all, which is developed in Catholic Social Teaching. At St Teresa’s we provide an education which focuses on the formation of the whole person and on our vocation and purpose in life.

The school has an excellent ‘Safeguarding policy’ that all employees and regular visitors to the school are shown upon entry. Safeguarding emergencies are rare, but the school’s robust systems ensure that all safeguarding matters are dealt with promptly and efficiently.

The school proactively maintains an accurate list of adults with Disclosure Barring Service (DBS), called the Single Central Record. Regular visitors to the school (including parent helpers), workmen and official visitors to the school are expected to bring in their DBS as well as a method of identification for recording before they enter the building.

Staying safe online is incorporated into our curriculum. All children in school complete a series of seven lessons in the Autumn term that focus specifically on Online safety and their role in society as ‘Digital Citizens’. The theme of online safety permeates through all of our work on the school computers. We hold annual Online Safety sessions for Parents run by Tim Fleisig our ICT technician.

We know that children often require additional support that is ‘additional to’ and ‘different from’ other children in a class. Teaching staff at St. Teresa’s are committed to ensuring that learning is individualised ensuring that each child is motivated and challenged at their own level. Although St Teresa’ s is a large primary school it maintains a ‘small school feel’ and teachers work hard to get to know children and families from the outset ensuring that they are able to meet a range of differing needs and learning styles., which aims to provide the child with special support to achieve measurable and realistic targets.

Children who have a specific area of need are given an SEN Support Plan (SSP), which is reviewed throughout the year. Children, parents and the school are very much part of this process.Sometimes children may work with a member of teaching staff as part of a specific planned intervention. Where this happens parents will be fully informed.