Intent At St John & St James’ Primary School we believe that art inspires creativity, imagination and inventiveness and gives our pupils the skills, concepts and knowledge necessary for them to engage and express responses to ideas and experiences. It fires their imagination and is a fundamental means of personal expression. We encourage children to learn from and be inspired by the work of great artists from different cultures and understand the contribution art has made to society, both past and present. As pupils progress, we support them to be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design. Through art work in the classroom, the children at St John & St James’ have the opportunity to develop their skills in drawing, textiles, sculpture, painting, print making and collage. These areas are developed continuously throughout the school from foundation stage through to year six. We encourage children to express individuality in their work and to keep their own personalised sketch books where they can explore ideas, be inventive and take risks. Children experiment and explore use of colour, texture, form, pattern as well as the use of different materials, techniques and processes. Self and peer evaluation of work is encouraged and children are taught how to be reflective and analytical to improve their work and the work of their peers. Children learn to appreciate works of art and use artistic language to describe paintings, sculptures and other art forms. We regularly enrich our Art curriculum with visits to London’s art galleries and make direct links to a wide variety of art forms through our half termly topics. When children leave St John & St James, we expect them to have a wide range of well-developed art skills in the six areas of our curriculum that they can then build on and develop further as they continue in their education. We believe every child has an inner artist waiting to be unveiled.

Intent At St John & St James’ Primary School, we believe computing is a fundamental component of the pupils’ learning, as technology is crucial to navigating our present world and innovating for the future. We aim for all children to understand the principles of information and computation and develop a secure understanding of how digital systems work and the ability to use this knowledge, through programming. By the time pupils leave us in Year 6, they have a secure digital literacy, which supports them as active participants in a digital world, ensuring they are able to use, express and develop their ideas through information and communication technology. We place a strong emphasis on e-safety throughout our computing curriculum in conjunction with our PSHE curriculum. We use the objectives from the DfE’s Education for a Connected World Framework to support our pupils for life in the digital world, ensuring they use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly; recognise acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and identify a range of ways to report concerns about content and contact. Our curriculum teaches children the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to balance the advantages offered by technology with a critical awareness of their own and other’s online behaviour. We equip every child with effective strategies for staying safe and making a positive contribution online.

Intent At St John St James, we know that reading is a powerful tool, which not only supports a child’s education, but also their social and cognitive development, their wellbeing and their mental health. Our vision is that all children develop a lifelong love of literature through exposure to high quality and relevant texts. Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum and through our phonics programme, explicit reading lessons, home reading, daily independent reading opportunities, our author of the month and listening to texts read aloud, our children become fluent, enthusiastic and critical readers. By the time our pupils leave St John St James, we envisage that they will be competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, seek out books from a range of different genres including poetry and engage in discussion about authorial choices or impact on the reader. Once our pupils have unlocked the key to reading at Primary school, it is our intention that they will be able to apply their reading skills in order to access any curriculum area in their secondary education and beyond.

Intent At St John St James, we aim to use writing as a means for our pupils to express their creativity, through providing them with the skills necessary to become independent writers with unique authorial voices. By the time our pupils reach year 6, our aim is that the pupils are proficient in developing their writing using the same process as an author would: exploring and collecting ideas from a range of authors and texts; drafting and re-drafting their writing and publishing it for a range of purposes and audiences. To do this, we provide our writers with the tools to communicate and share their ideas with those around them through exposure to high-quality texts, which exemplify the power of vocabulary and authorial choices. Through this process, as well as a focus on transcription and composition, our pupils develop into skilled and creative young writers.

Intent At St John St James, we believe history has a pivotal role in helping our pupils understand the complexity and diversity of human civilisations and in turn, supporting them in understanding their own place and identity within society.

Oracy at St John St James' Oracy is the ability for students to articulate ideas and develop understanding and engagement with others through spoken language. It permits students to become effective speakers and listeners, whilst deepening their subject knowledge and understanding through carefully planned, designed, modelled and scaffolded talking opportunities across the curriculum. At St John St James CofE Primary School, we know that teaching oracy improves academic outcomes, through developing skills to think critically, reason together and have the vocabulary to express one’s knowledge and understanding. We also value the power of oracy education in increasing the confidence and wellbeing of our pupils, empowering them with the belief that their voice has a value and developing the ability to articulate thoughts that others will listen and respond to. Furthermore, oracy skills are pivotal for social mobility, equipping children to thrive in life beyond school and supporting them to progress and access employment.

Intent At St John St James, geography plays a vital role in our curriculum; it establishes and strengthens our pupils’ connection to the world in which they live and prepares our pupils to be global citizens, through helping them understand the world’s environments, the features within them and the human and physical processes at work there. Through taking pupils beyond their immediate world and studying the human and physical geography of localities across the globe’s continents, our geography curriculum deepens our pupils’ appreciation for the world, its cultural diversity, its ever-changing nature and their responsibility in creating a more sustainable future. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives, equipping them well for further education and beyond.

Schools within the Primary Advantage Federation have a strong commitment to improving children’s maths. Daily maths lessons lay the foundations for this critical life skill as teachers follow the popular and effective PA Maths programme.

Intent At St John & St James we are proud of our rich and ambitious Spanish curriculum, which is designed to ensure that children are instilled with passion and curiosity about learning a new language. We strongly believe that learning a new language will empower our pupils to become an embedded part of the global community and will deepen their understanding of the world around them. Our approach to teaching Spanish is underpinned by the belief that learning one language provides an opening for pupils’ to explore other cultures. We seek to provide the foundations for future learning by developing children’s competence and confidence in communicating in an additional language, both orally and in written form. By encouraging pupil’s to broaden their horizons and appreciate the world around them, we hope to empower them with the necessary skills to live, work, study and travel abroad. At St John & St James we highly value the diverse variety of languages spoken within our school community and aim to ensure that our curriculum has a strong focus on effective communication and develops a love and appreciation for language.

Intent At St John and St James’ we believe every child is a musician and aim to inspire pupils to develop a love of music and develop their talent as musicians. In turn, children increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement. We help children develop their musicianship through high-quality musical experiences both in and outside school. We offer enrichment opportunities such as music projects and trips through which children can experience music in a variety of ways - with different musicians and at exciting London venues. Our ambitious and rich music curriculum aims to engage and inspire pupils to develop both a love of music and their skills as musicians. We provide children with a range of opportunities to cultivate their cultural understanding and develop their musical competencies, such as appreciating and understanding a wide range of music from different traditions. As our pupils progress through our curriculum, we teach them to engage critically with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to music drawn from different traditions and from great composers and musicians. By the time our children leave St John & St James, they have been equipped with this knowledge and understanding as well as having an appreciation of a breadth of musical forms.

Intent At St John & St James, we believe all pupils can develop the skills to excel in a range of physical activities and that an ambitious PE curriculum is fundamental in positively impacting our children’s long term physical and mental health. We intend to develop a love of being physically active and a curiosity and confidence to engage in a range of challenging physical activities. We value sportsmanship, self-improvement and healthy competition and all pupils are actively encouraged to demonstrate this through the breadth of competitions they are exposed to both in school and against other local schools. Our well-structured, progressive curriculum has been designed to build upon the pupils’ existing knowledge whilst increasing skill acquisition and the confidence of all pupils. Decision-making is our encompassing skill within P.E and pupils understand that it is transferable and that good decisions may look different depending on your ability and the situation. We believe that all pupils deserve an outstanding education and having a clear understanding of pupils’ attainment start points, socio-economic status and access to activities outside of school is helping us to make this a reality. We aim for all pupils to leave KS2 with the physical competence, knowledge and network to be able to lead a healthy life and continue to partake in physical activity.

Intent At St John and St James, we teach the National Curriculum for Design and Technology (D&T). We teach D&T in subject blocks in order to preserve the integrity of subject specific skills and knowledge. There is a focus on a key strand of D&T every term. The focuses are Food, Textiles and Construction. D&T is taught through a series of STEAM projects. This means that each project encompasses elements of science, technology, engineering, art and maths. These subjects are carefully integrated into the D&T process to deepen children’s technical knowledge and encourage cross-curricular links. These links are strengthened by the D&T curriculum reflecting the current science units being covered by each year group. We make cross-curriculum links in this way to increase the exposure and relationship our children have with STEAM subjects. By engaging our children with STEAM subjects in action, we increase their science capital, which better enables them to consider STEAM related subjects and careers. We add to our children’s science capital further by linking each D&T unit studied with a key designer. This means that our children have a real-life role model to look up to in the area being studied. All of this, along with the dedication of our teachers, ensures that we are inspiring the designers and engineers of the future. At St John and St James, we understand the importance of making real-life links to learning and our D&T curriculum does this in many ways. Firstly, a project brief is given which details a real-life audience and purpose of a product for a given situation. This is also where children deduce a design criteria for their product. Secondly, children study a key designer, chef or craftsperson and their work exemplifies the techniques going to be studied. Thirdly, children apply science and maths in the understanding and making of their products in a real-life setting. This enables children to see STEAM subjects in action for a real purpose. When children leave St John and St James, we expect them to have a sound understanding of the key skills and techniques required in D&T. They should be able to build simple structures, sew competently and cook a range of products. They should be competent designers, who are able to evaluate their own work and who are well equipped to take part in the next stage of their education. They should be able to see and engage with links between STEAM subjects and the D&T process.

Intent At St John & St James’ Primary School, we intend for all children to develop a solid understanding of essential scientific knowledge, which can stimulate awe and wonder about the world around us. We believe science can have a transformative effect on children, helping them to become curious and inspired by the world around them. Based on the National Curriculum, our curriculum provides a rich enquiry-based learning programme, which covers all the core scientific disciplines of Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Practical experiences further strengthen our children’s understanding, vocabulary and scientific skills. We encourage children to be inspired by the work of great scientists and understand the contribution science has made to society, both past and present. At the end of year six, our children are confident and curious scientists, who have a secure basis for future scientific learning.

Intent Religious Education in a Church school should enable every child to flourish and to live life in all its fullness (John 10:10). It will help educate for dignity and respect encouraging all to live well together, Statement of Entitlement (2019). At St John St James, we believe religious education makes a unique contribution to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils and supports wider community cohesion. Religious Education at St John & St James’ enables all children to explore religious beliefs and practises, some of which are located in the local community. Pupils are encouraged to explore the fundamental questions of life raised by human experiences. Pupils extend their thinking and analytical skills as well as their creative, imaginative and emotional development through our Religious Education curriculum. Furthermore, they develop their mutual understanding of differing religious and cultural backgrounds, whilst being encouraged to develop a reflective approach to life in an atmosphere of openness, exploration and enquiry. Pupils are taught to respect the differences and help in the promotion of a harmonious society underpinned by our school’s vision ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:36). By treating others how we wish to be treated, we promote a school culture ingrained in mutual respect, understanding and compassion for those around us. This vision is at the heart of everything we do at St John & St James’ and enables the children to be successful learners and caring individuals.

Diversifying our Curriculum Our staff have been reflecting on our school as a place of belonging and somewhere where every member of our community feels as though they are confident and safe in their identity. We believe that the curriculum and culture that we foster should be inclusive to, represent, value and celebrate the individuals who shape the school community. This representation influences how our pupils think and feel about themselves today and how they see their future on our planet as global citizens. As a result, we have been looking at positive and purposeful interventions that are aimed at how our community perceives our school; what we do here and to what extent it is meaningful. Our intention is to centre our curriculum around equality and diversity through inclusive representation; reframing the traditional teaching of subjects through a western lens and explicit teaching about racism and anti-racism. In turn, we aim to nurture a sense of belonging, as well as embedding values of tolerance, acceptance and empathy within our school curriculum and culture.

Intent At St John St James’ Primary School, we recognise the importance of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) in supporting our children in their social and emotional development, as well as promoting their health and well-being. We believe that in order for our children to thrive, they need a secure understanding of how to manage their feelings and relationships and how to tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up. Through our PSHE curriculum, our children build the knowledge and understanding that they need in order to play an active and healthy part in the life of our school, their community and the world. Our lessons give children an understanding of the rights and responsibilities that are fundamental to becoming informed, thoughtful and responsible individuals in secondary school and in their future lives.