St Paul's Catholic Primary School

St. Paul’s Catholic Primary School

Sisefield Road, Kings Norton

Birmingham B38 9JB 

Telephone: 0121 464 1546  

Principal: Nichola Damms

10-02-2020

St Paul’s Curriculum

As you know, we like to be at the forefront of innovative educational thinking. I have no doubt that your children have been telling you all about our new exciting ‘knowledge rich curriculum’ that we introduced in September. We developed this based on a model rolled out by St Thomas Aquinas School. Those of you with older children at the school will know that the senior leadership team at St Thomas Aquinas have transformed the curriculum based on sound educational research. Children carry knowledge organisers to each lesson; they know what is expected of them in each subject and have frequent opportunities to revisit learning to avoid cramming for exams.

All of our staff spent last academic year working with Alex Pethick, the Curriculum Director for the Knowledge Schools Trust London, to help research and design our own curriculum for each year group from Nursery to Year 6. We have done this alongside colleagues across our other MAC schools. I’m delighted to say that we have now designed a more knowledge-rich, coherent and cumulative curriculum which offers your children excellent foundations for their future. The curriculum is set to ensure all children leaving St Paul’s have strong foundations in every academic discipline. History, geography, art and music are now taught discretely, not as a part of a ‘topic’ lesson as previously. Timetables have been reviewed accordingly.

Children in KS2 learn Latin. Studying Latin is fantastic preparation for learning and becoming fluent in one or more of the Romance languages - French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. Latin prepares students for several important professions that are rich in Latin vocabulary. These include law, medicine, science, music, theology, philosophy, art, and literature. The regular grammar of Latin is also ideal for shedding light on the way all languages, including English, work.

Year 1 – Year 6 parents: We would like to invite you to a brief meeting with your child’s class teacher on Thursday 27^th February 2020 at 3:15pm.  The meeting will last around 20 minutes and allow you and the class teacher to discuss the curriculum in more depth and answer any questions that you may have. At this meeting you will be shown a copy of our school ‘knowledge organisers’ which the children will take home with them each night. All parents who attend will be able to take their child’s own knowledge organiser away with them that day. Please ensure someone attends the meeting on behalf of your child.

Thank you for supporting your child on their new educational journey.

I welcome any feedback that you have about our new curriculum.

Kind regards,

Mrs Damms