We define ‘curriculum’ as everything which encompasses a child’s experience at St Joseph's infant School, ensuring that they are ready with the right knowledge but also with the right skills for the next stage of their educational journey. Children are at the heart of our curriculum, and it is underpinned by our school ethos:

St Joseph's Infant school is an inclusive, nurturing community school, growing together to become resilient and life-long learners.

CURRICULUM intent

At St Joseph's infant School, we value the uniqueness of each individual child, recognising and nurturing their potential for learning. Our aim, through our curriculum, is to enable each child to fully participate in current and future society as a responsible, self-confident citizen. We use Chichester and the surrounding areas to enhance and make learning purposeful.

Our curriculum has been designed with the following principles: it is personalised around what our children need, maximising our locality; it is outward-facing, setting learning in local, national and global contexts wherever possible; it aims to celebrate diversity and contexts which make learning relevant, purposeful and sequenced, because we want children to know certain things at certain points of their life.

Golden threads to our curriculum

Our curriculum is designed so links can be made both between and within subjects, with the core links of Chichester and transport running as threads through our curriculum. There is an emphasis on reading and writing throughout our curriculum, with maths being taught discretely, making cross-curricular links where appropriate. We ensure the effectiveness and demonstrate impact of our core learning through rigorous assessment. ‘Hook’ texts are used to engage children in their learning across the curriculum, giving all children access to high quality texts to promote a love of reading.

Life Skills- Working with Others and My Happy Mind

Children at St Joseph's infant school are taught skills to support them with lifelong learning to ensure they can access wider opportunities in their future lives. Our children will be challenged, in an environment where they feel safe, and where any mistakes are viewed as part of their learning journey to build resilience and determination to succeed. Our children are taught trust, communication and problem solving skills, as well as how to work in teams, where each team member is valued and has a role to play in order to achieve a collective goal. Character development, independence, collaboration and building resilience are key elements that our curriculum offers and combining this with developing the whole child in a structured approach to teaching well-being and mental health, we believe we are preparing our children for the wider world.

Enrichment

Our curriculum is enriched through a range of extra-curricular activities either through clubs that are offered or through curriculum time. Each class has karate lessons, for example, and Forest school lessons. We also offer curriculum immersive days, such as project days for Design and Technology projects or days which see the children fully immersed in learning about a particular era or event in history- for example, the Great Fire of London.