At St Mary’s, we have developed our science and foundation curriculum to have a clear progression of knowledge, skills and vocabulary throughout the school. Progression documents have been developed by middle leaders and are used by class teachers when planning provision for all children.

In order for children’s learning to progress, it is necessary for repetition to occur. Therefore, our curriculum is centred around the research-based approach of repeated curriculum concepts. Our curriculum working group has identified whole-school key curriculum concepts – an example of which can be seen in the images below.

Our whole-school concepts run as threads through our curriculum and help piece together a child’s learning through their journey with us from each year group and phase of education. Each subject has specific whole-school key concepts which appear on all planning (including long and medium term plans), knowledge organisers, resources and the learning environment. These are the key threads that will be referred to repeatedly throughout the curriculum (not taught as one off ideas) in a range of contexts and, once understood, transform a child’s understanding of different subject areas. These key concept threads weave through our curriculum to support children with developing a more complex understanding of them as they progress with their learning and transferring knowledge from their working memory to their long-term memory.

Examples of our Whole-School Key Curriculum Concepts:

Concepts in our Learning Environment

Examples of our Concepts on our Knowledge Organisers