At St Leonard’s Lower school, we are growing and learning together with God's love. Our school vision is based on the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). We are encouraged to think about and understand that the smallest things have the greatest potential when they are provided with the best environment for growth.

We aim to provide the rich soil (the learning environment and curriculum) that enables our children to develop deep roots, flourish and grow in their own unique way.

We will do this by:

Providing a high quality and nurturing learning environment.

Providing a relevant, creative, exciting, memorable and challenging curriculum to support all learners to achieve their full potential and to be prepared for their future.

Providing an inclusive education for all, enabling each child to learn and develop the skills and knowledge they need to thrive.

Being dedicated to continuous improvement, challenging ourselves, celebrating our successes and always aspiring to be “the best we can be” in order to develop and maintain high standards in all aspects of work and school life.

Promoting spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding through appropriate curricular opportunities with particular reference to equality and diversity.

Our curriculum has been designed to enable the children to meet and exceed the expectations of the 2014 National Curriculum programmes of study both in terms of knowledge and skills, in an engaging, inspiring and memorable way. 

The curriculum is a literacy rich curriculum, our teachers carefully plan activities related to high quality and engaging texts which are suited to children's ages and experiences and aimed at developing a love of reading and writing. High quality visits, visitors and enrichment days are an important part of our curriculum planning and our wonderful outdoor environment and neighbouring country parks are used to support the children's learning wherever possible.

We endeavour to make learning in subjects cross-curricular and meaningful to each child; providing real depth of understanding and helping them to 'know more and remember more'. However, we also provide opportunities to teach certain knowledge and skills discreetly, for example phonics, spelling, handwriting, mathematics, religious education, physical education, PSHRE (Personal, Social, Health and Relationships Education) and French (Key Stage 2 only). Our year 2 class also takes part in a planned, weekly Forest School session.

Our curriculum is carefully planned to sequence the introduction of new knowledge and the consolidation of prior understanding. Children connect new knowledge with existing knowledge and revisit the key skills which form the essence of each subject through a rich variety of contexts as prescribed by each topic where they also practise and refine their developing skills. In this way, children acquire the knowledge and facts they need for History for example, and consolidate their understanding by writing about it in English and designing in Art, whilst simultaneously improving and developing their English and Art and Design skills.

Our curriculum is inclusive, ambitious and adapted for all pupils to achieve their potential. Those who are most able are challenged and encouraged to expand their skills through higher order questioning and problem solving skills and those who find learning more challenging are given targeted intervention, adapted learning tasks and support to embed skills and to learn in a style that best suits their individual needs. Our pupils are supported to understand how to be a 'good learner' and how to be ready, respectful and safe. They learn about rights and responsibilities and as a result our pupils behave well, they are motivated to learn and know how to succeed. 

Embedded within our curriculum, throughout our teaching and learning is a whole school culture of 'growth mindset', encouraging our pupils to become confident and resilient learners. Our curriculum encourages pupils to relish challenges and embrace mistakes as part of the learning process, to value the importance of effort, to respond carefully to feedback and take inspiration from others. This will help them to achieve in their future lives as adults and as they move onto middle school. 

There is a strong emphasis on personal development and emotional wellbeing. Our PSHE and Online Safety curriculums support our children to develop the emotional literacy and social and relationships skills that they need to be happy, healthy and safe. We have a well trained support team who are able to offer extra curricular interventions to support social and emotional wellbeing. 

Our school values are embedded within our curriculum and within our whole school ethos through collective worship and classroom activities. Our pupils and the wider school community articulate the values and are encouraged to recognise them in their and others’ behaviour. Through these and through other areas of our curriculum pupils are given opportunities to develop socially, morally, spiritually and culturally, with an emphasis on respecting diversity, to understand and appreciate the wider society that we at school are preparing them for. 

Community involvement is an essential part of our curriculum as we celebrate local traditions, learning new skills to enable the children to take an active role in events throughout the year. Children leave St Leonard's with a sense of belonging to a tightly knit community where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections and become lifelong learners.

Implementation

For further information on how we implement our Curriculum please see individual curriculum areas by following the curriculum link below.

Our curriculum is monitored regularly through our whole school monitoring and evaluation schedule. This includes lesson observations, learning walks, book looks and pupil progress meetings. Termly input from governors and the School's Improvement Advisor also forms part of the monitoring and evaluation process.

Assessment is carried out by teachers to inform them of the children’s gaps in learning, and this feeds into the next lesson so that the pace of learning is determined by the children’s confidence in each area. Parents receive reports twice per year, and are invited in to Parent Consultations one per term. Further information evenings and open classrooms are hosted across the academic year.
 

Impact – National Comparison 

St Leonard's is proud of its achievement record and we consistently achieve averages above National Benchmarks in all areas from EYFS, Phonics Screen, Key Stage 1 and Multiplication Check Results at Year 4. 

In 2023 77% of our pupils achieved the nationally expected level of achievement at the end of Reception compared with a national outcome of 65% (2022)

In 2023 81% of our pupils passed the Phonics check in Year 1 compared to 75% nationally (2022).

In Year 2 2023 81% of our children are working at national expectation (67% national 2022) 35% of our children are working at Greater Depth Standard (18% national 2022)

In Writing 73% of our children are working at national expectation (58% national 2022) 

In Maths 81% are working at national expectation (68% national 2022) 19% of our children are working at Greater Depth Standard (15% national 2022)