Curriculum Enrichment
At St Joseph’s Primary School, we believe all children deserve a well-rounded, culturally rich, education. The enrichment curriculum plays a crucial part in achieving this objective. The purpose of the enrichment curriculum is to provide a broad range of opportunities to learn and develop outside of the classroom. These opportunities foster professional skills such as resilience, active listening, confidence, self-esteem and teamwork. This is also coupled with the growth of interests and enthusiasm for passions beyond the classroom. A primary focus of our curriculum is to raise aspirations, engender a sense of personal pride in achievement, and provide a purpose and relevance for learning.
The school takes pride in providing a highly inclusive environment, where learners demonstrate high levels of enjoyment in their education and make very good progress across the curriculum. Children at all levels are helped to achieve their potential. Those who are most able are challenged and supported through being offered tasks which provide opportunities for greater depth and those who can struggle are encouraged and given targeted support to embed skills, to develop at their own pace or simply to learn in a style that best suits their individual needs.
In addition to our exciting and stimulating cross-curricular themes, we also provide further opportunities to enhance children’s learning wherever possible. These include:
- Whole School Theme Days/Weeks.
- Topic Launch and Landing Days
- Forest School
- Educational Visits and Residentials
- Visitors into School
- After- School Clubs and Opportunities
Whole School Theme Days/Weeks
Throughout the year, themed days/weeks are woven into the curriculum to extend the breadth and balance of opportunities we offer our pupils. These include, Anti-bullying Week, Internet Safety Week, World Book Day, Black History Month, Sport & Health Week including Sports Day, Science Week and a Created and Loved By God Week which includes cultural, social, and individual links about the children that are in the St Joseph’s community.
Topic Launch and Landing Days
As part of our History and Geography curriculum, each term has a Topic focus with one half term linked to the History objectives and one linked to the Geography objectives. Each Topic begins with a ‘Launch Day’ which sparks the engagement of the children with enrichment and learning opportunities linked to the topic. Each topic then is completed with a ‘Landing Day’ where learning is shared with a group in or out of school to allow the children opportunities to be enthused and present their learning in a variety of ways.
Forest School
Forest Schools is a Scandinavian initiative designed to encourage and inspire individuals of any age through an innovative, long term, educational approach to outdoor play and learning in a woodland environment. As a school we are very fortunate in having our own Forest School area and 2 staff members trained to deliver the Forest Schools programme.
Forest School is offered to all children in a variety of formats including whole class sessions, parent session and intervention groups. Sessions are designed around the needs of the group to ensure that they are learner-led. Sessions are designed around a theme, themes are sometimes subtle such as evolving or exploring the site or more obvious such as butterflies, spies, fairies or nature investigators. Many areas of the National Curriculum are intrinsically covered, in the Forest Schools experience without the programmes needing to be curriculum led. Teamwork skills are developed through games and activities. Individual skills and self-esteem are heightened throughout activities such as hide and seek, shelter building, tool skills, lighting fires or environmental art, the list is endless. Each activity develops intra and inter-personal skills as well as practical and intellectual skills. Further up the school, opportunities are built into the curriculum for children to continue learning beyond the classroom including undertaking fieldwork and enquiry based-work in the local area.
Educational Visits and Residentials
School trips and visits are an integral part of the education of children at St Joseph’s. We value the opportunities such visits offer our pupils and the commitment of staff and adults undertaking them. Trips include class visits aimed at bringing learning alive and providing first-hand experience and bringing learning alive; extra-curricular outings such as activities with the school choir or sporting events; and attending or taking part in performances or competitions.
Visitors into School
Visitors have a valuable role to play and can contribute to many aspects of the life and work of the school. They deliver talks, workshops and full day activities across a wide range of subjects, giving pupils access to outside experiences and expertise. These includes visitors from Severn Trent Water, Author visits, the NSPCC, Derbyshire Fire and Police and local Members of Parliament.
After School Clubs and Opportunities
As a school we offer pupils opportunities to participate in extra-curricular activities after school. At any time, a wide range of clubs is on offer – our programmes of clubs and activities available is revised termly depending on the time of year and other commitments children may have.
Other Enrichment Opportunities
At St Joseph’s, we offer a range of enrichment opportunities that include;
- Pantomime visit into school.
- EYFS Stay and Play opportunities.
- Drama opportunities in events such as EYFS and KS1 Nativity, KS2 Carol Concert, KS2 Easter Presentation and KS2 Summer Play.
- Art and Writing competitions throughout school.
- DAaRT program for Year 6.
