Our Curriculum
Learning to live life in all its fullness, John 10:10
Curriculum Intent
At Christ Church Juniors, our curriculum drives all we do and encompasses all forms of learning both within the classroom and outside it. We believe that every child has the right to an exciting, engaging and inclusive curriculum that both meets the academic needs of every child as well as building resilient, inquisitive and rounded young people who are ready to enter the wider world.
Although we strive for our subjects to symbiotically complement each other, they still retain their own distinctiveness and this is captured within our curriculum skills progression and knowledge maps that set out our intent for each subject and how this will be implemented across the four years that children are with us. Each subject is led by a named teacher who help to inspire colleagues and children within their subject. Our headteacher, Pippa Osborne, leads on the curriculum at CCJ and works with every subject leader to ensure a clear intent, implementation and impact that are woven together to form the educational offer for every pupil in our care.
Curriculum Implementation
Our taught curriculum is split into two cycles as we have two mixed age classes in our school and this way we can make sure that no child misses or repeats a subject during their time with us.
The two cycles are then split into 'Lower Band' which is the curriculum content for our Y3 and 4 children and 'Upper Band' which is the content for our Y5 and 6 children. Each cycle lasts one year and this is split into six terms - two from September to Christmas, two from Christmas to Easter and two from Easter to Summer. While every area of the national curriculum is covered across the year, we do not try and teach every subject every term as this does not allow the rich depth of teaching we want, so each term has either a history or geography focus while subjects such as English, maths, science, PE, RE, computing and PSHE are taught every term. This also allows for time to be spent in forest school, swimming, trips and visits, residential camps and on CCJ University enrichment activities.
We regularly re-evaluate all aspects of the curriculum as it is a living document that constantly changes and evolves to meet the needs and interests of the current cohorts. You will see that our Christian values, the RE curriculum and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development are the starting points for our whole curriculum and our staff use these where possible throughout each area of learning to ensure our pupils have a breadth of spiritual opportunities.
Our teachers work incredibly hard to ensure the curriculum they deliver across each year group is engaging, interesting, exciting and challenging. The overviews below give an outline of the area covered within each subject for each term of the academic year. Parents receive additional information through the school newsletter, band letters and events where we invite parents to join us in school. If you would like any additional information regarding the curriculum at CCJ, please see your child's class teacher or band leader.
Curriculum Impact
We measure the impact of our curriculum in a variety of ways, from feedback in books, to our pupil progress meetings with teachers, to termly reports to parents and of course our internal data and end of Key Stage (Y6) SATs. In addition to these more formal ways of measuring the impact of teaching and learning, impact can be seen through the extensive monitoring that is undertaken by our school improvement partner, between schools, by the governing body and within our own team. All of this drives continuous self reflection and evolution of our curriculum offer.
However, while all these methods of determining impact are valuable, we believe that the true measure of the impact of four years of our curriculum offer is to talk to the children themselves about their learning journey, the support and challenge that exists and what they are excited about learning in their future. We would also encourage you to talk to other parents, read our weekly newsletters and follow us on Twitter @CCJDownend where you will get a glimpse of the breadth of success our children experience while they are with us at Christ Church Junior School.