Curriculum Intent
- At Caton Primary School, our vision is to create a curriculum that is relevant and prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.
- We promote a positive attitude towards learning so that our curious young people enjoy coming to school and acquire a firm foundation for future learning.
- We want to help each child develop resilience, independence, responsibility and emotional intelligence.
- We foster high expectations of behaviour for learning, endeavour and achievement.
- By working with our village and families, we will create an aspirational school community in which everyone is valued and successes are celebrated.
Aims
- Create caring, confident and curious children.
- Offer opportunities that will expand horizons.
- Motivate and challenge our children to achieve academic success.
- Enable children to have respect for themselves and high self-esteem, and to be able to live and work co-operatively with others.
- Partner with families to create an aspirational school community.
- Appreciate the uniqueness of each child and recognise their potential.
- Support, guide and inspire through excellent teaching practices.
- Show our children what they can achieve.
- Guide children in understanding the importance of truth and fairness, so that they grow up committed to equal opportunities for all.
- Celebrate and promote individual talents, interests and achievements.
- Promote understanding of diversity and global awareness.
We demonstrate our commitment to the above through our Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 ‘Caton Passports’. These outline our school’s unique curriculum which embraces so much more than the National Curriculum requirements and fulfils our mission statement. It includes statements such as: I can tie my shoelaces; I know my date of birth and address; I have visited an art gallery; I have been on a hike; I have represented the school at a sporting event; I have performed to an audience; and I have raised money for charity.
Success in all aspects of the broad curriculum is celebrated at our weekly celebration assembly. Certificates are presented for Super Citizens, Wonderful Workers and Golden Pen awards. During these assemblies, we also invite children to share some of their personal achievements that link to the wider curriculum, such as swimming certificates and musical achievements.
We also hold an annual awards ceremony for sustained achievement in all aspects of the curriculum from Maths to Citizenship and the Performing Arts.
Phonics and Reading
Phonics
In Early Years and Key Stage One, we teach the ‘Red Rose Letters and Sounds‘ phonics programme. This programme has been carefully selected due to the careful planning of systematic, synthetic phonics. In Reception, the children are taught the initial letter sounds that enable them to unlock the world of reading. Once the children have mastered the initial sounds, they move on to alternative spellings for each sound.
For example, for the sound ‘ay’, children will initially be taught the spelling ‘ai’ (as in rain). Once they can read, spell and write words containing this spelling, they will move on to ‘ay’ (as in play), ‘a-e’ (as in cake) and ‘ei’ (as in reindeer). To allow children to
Reading
The reading schemes used in school include: Songbirds, Oxford Reading Tree (Floppy’s Phonics) and Fireflies. A variety of texts are chosen according to reading ability in order to encourage a broad range of reading and to link with the stage that pupils are at in their phonics.
Our whole-school library is well stocked with fiction and non-fiction books, comics, reference texts and narratives with increasingly complex plots. When our pupils move beyond phonics, they are encouraged to select, scan and return their own books to the library.
Reading diaries are used to record books read and also as a means of communication between parents and teacher to help support the reading process.
We always have a quality class novel on the go, which we read daily to our children, and we hold a big annual celebration of reading on World Book Day.
Early Years
Here at Caton, we believe wholeheartedly that children learn best when they are allowed to pursue their own interests and discover the world around them through a combination of free play, guided play and adult led activities. Our EYFS curriculum has been developed to ensure that students cement a solid foundation for the rest of their learning journey at Caton Primary. It is divided into six broad themes and is largely skills based in order to give flexibility to adapt to the needs and interests of the children.
If you would like to know more about the government curriculum for Early Years, follow the links below:
Statutory framework for Early Years
Years 1 to 6
In 2024/2025 we are following cycle B.
We provide all pupils with as many opportunities as possible to share their learning through:
- Weekly revision sessions during which pupils can consolidate, extend and share their knowledge
- Learning assemblies
- Learning exhibitions
- Music concerts. Year 3 and 4 all learn to play the ukulele in Cycle A and the keyboard in Cycle B through the Lancashire Music Service. At the end of term’s learning, they perform for parents.
- Corresponding termly with pupils from the primary school in Socx as part of our Modern Foreign Languages.
Useful links:
At Caton, we believe firmly that our science curriculum gives pupils the opportunity to ask questions about the world around them whilst empowering them to find their own answers. We are firm believers in reflective practice and regularly review our science curriculum to ensure that it provides children with the highest quality teaching and learning. When making changes to our curriculum, we draw inspiration from a range of sources, including the two documents below. The Caton ‘Science key principles and vision’ document outlines what we feel is most important for our pupils. The Science ‘intent’ document outlines our curriculum and the key questions that we use to develop and assess the children’s knowledge.
Science key principles and visions
Useful links:
Online Safety
Being online is an integral part of children and young people’s lives. Social media, online games, websites and apps can be accessed through mobile phones, computers, laptops and tablets – all of which form a part of children and young people’s online world. The internet and online technology provides new opportunities for young people’s learning and growth, but it can also expose them to new types of risks. That is why E-safety forms a fundamental part of the PSHE and computing curriculum here at Caton. To keep our pupils and their families safe, we have ensured that E-Safety is woven throughout our curriculum and that staff are informed on the latest dangers and developments. In addition, we foster an open and honest environment in which children feel safe to discuss and report any queries or concerns that they may have.
NSPCC guidance
If you would like to learn more about how you can help keep your child safe, the NSPCC offers easy-to-read parent and carer guides to online safety. Please follow the link to head to the NSPCC website and start your online safety journey NSPCC Tips for parents on Online Safety .
Internet Matters
Internet Matters was launched in May 2014 by the founding partners, BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media, to help parents and carers navigate the ever-changing digital landscape. Their website is simple to navigate and covers every aspect of digital and online safety. Furthermore, they produce easy-to-understand parent guides for specific areas of digital and online safety. Here are a few of the most pertinent guides for you as parents and carers. We encourage all of our school community to keep children safe by reading the leaflets below and following the links to discover more.
Internet Matters – leaflets for parents
Online safety guide – 0-5years / Online safety guide – 6-10years / Online safety guide – 11-14years / Discovering digital – Primary School / Cyberbullying – 6-10years / Cyberbullying – 11-13years / Screen time – 0-5years / Screen time – 5-7years / Screen time – 7-11years/ Cyberbullying tips / Digital resilience
Further support and guidance
RSHE
Please find information regarding the content of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education curriculum. We are following the advice from the PSHE Association and The Association of Science Education collaboration. Appendix 1
Swimming
All pupils in Key Stage 2 swim in the Autumn term. Once they can swim 25 metres competently, they progress to learning lifesaving and other water skills.
PE and school sport
At Caton, we are passionate about using physical education and school sport as a way to nurture our children’s mental and physical health and wellbeing. Through school sports and PE lessons, we teach children a variety of basic physical and gameplay skills that enable them to grow into physically literate and emotionally resilient young people. We are lucky to have on our school grounds, a forested area, running track, full size sports hall, large sports field and two climbing and play equipment areas. We participate in sporting events organised by the Lune Valley Cluster and pride ourselves on our teamwork, determination and fair play.
Educational Visits
Educational visits form a very important part of our curriculum. In Key Stage 1, day trips complement the children’s learning in science, RE, history and geography. In Key Stage 2, in addition to day trips to venues such as the slavery museum in Liverpool, we have a suite of residential visits including: Borwick Hall Outdoor Adventure (Year 3 /4); London (Year 5); and France (Year 6). We believe that these trips equip our pupils with life skills such as resilience, teamwork and independence, as well as developing their cultural capital and, of course, making memories for life.
Support for parents and carers
We support our parents through an open-door policy. Over the year, parents are invited in for our open days, weekly assemblies and other special events. In addition we hold parental workshops that aim to give advice on how to teach areas such as reading, phonics, arithmetic and writing, as well as providing opportunities for questions to be answered.
