Our Curriculum

At St Mary’s Primary School, we believe our children deserve a curriculum that is ambitious, engaging and inspiring. We understand that education is the key to success in life therefore our curriculum has been carefully considered and designed to provide learning opportunities that meet the needs of all our children, encouraging them to reach their full potential irrespective of their starting points.

We endeavour to make knowledge stick, therefore our aim is to ensure that children leave us with the knowledge and skills, resilience and confidence to be happy and successful as they continue their journey from education into the workplace and society in Modern Britain.

Assessment

We use two methods of assessing children at St. Mary's: Formative assessment and Summative assessment. 

Formative assessment is what the teachers are doing all the time when they are teaching the children. Teaching staff constantly make judgements about how well the children are acquiring knowledge, skills and understanding through observing them in their work and play, through carefully planned and constructed questioning and through marking or going through their work with them. These judgements inform what the teachers will teach the children next depending on how well the children are progressing and developing. 

We also test the children at different points during the year using published tests as well as teacher devised tests. These tests give a score and tell us how well a child is doing compared to other children and how well they may do in end of Key Stage tests. At St. Mary's we use the following tests:

• BASE Test (CEM) Reception baseline assessment
• NGRT (Reading Test)
• NGST (Spelling Test)
• CATS (Cognitive Abilities Test Year 3 and Year 5)
• GL Assessment Progress Tests in Maths and English (Y1, 3, 4 and 5)

In addition the children sit the statutory Phonics Screening Check in Year 1 and SATS tests at the end of KS1 (Y2) and KS2 (Y6).

If parents wish to discuss the results of any tests they should make an appointment to do so with the class teacher or Mrs Woolley. 

Seesaw 

During the course of the school day, there are often times when there is great learning happening but which is hard to show in a book. Whether it is drama, gymnastics or a mathematical explanation, it is important to try and capture some of these key learning moments. Therefore, we use the online system Seesaw to capture pictures and videos of children's learning. These are collected in a child's individual online portfolio. Once a child's work has been approved by the teacher, parents can opt in to receive updates on their child's work at school. This allows families to see a snapshot of their child's work, which they would otherwise miss.

Further information 

Periodically we hold information evenings for parents where we share information about how we teach and how children learn. Please see below for links to resources from these sessions.

Year 2 and Year 6 SATS

Children in Year 2 and Year 6 take part in end of key stage national curriculum tests (SATS) in May.

They are not qualifications and don't affect the children's future options in school.  The results of these tests are used to ensure schools are teaching pupils the essential knowledge and skills required by the National Curriculum.

Further information can be found on the Government website.